May 30 - Mousekersize

Luke dancing with his class during their festival last month. Hope this puts a smile on your face this morning. Mousersize everyone!

May 27 - Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day: thank to you to all our family and friends who serve/have served in the military including Great Grandpa Arena, Grandpa Cook, Grandpa Yamo (RIP), Uncle Bryan, Uncle Christian and so many others. The kids made this cake yesterday, USA! We met up with some neighbors and had a picnic in the park and then went to a bbq at Emma's house. It was a wonderful day!

Julia's first 'official' swim meet was this past Saturday. We got up at 5:30am (yikes!) and went to a local high school for the meet. Luckily it was indoor so we didn't have to sit outside in the heat all day. Our team had about 100 swimmers and the other team had over 200 so it was a packed house. Julia improved her times in all her events and most importantly, had a blast! The meet wrapped up around 1:30pm and we headed out for some delicious tex-mex. In terms of the meet, several people have asked why the meets are so long. The summer meets where I grew up were around 3h and that included diving. The meets here are more like our championship meets. There are close to 100 events with a check-in area and bullpen. Also, keep in mind there are several hundred swimmers and usually 2 heats per event. It's intense!

On Sunday, JD took the kids to the zoo and they had fun at the splash pad and seeing the animals. They also took a train ride around the park (Luke's favorite) and we had a great spaghetti dinner at home. Once again a great weekend!

The best part of swim practice is playing afterward

And then dressing up at home

Memorial Day park fun with Siddhant, Rea, Julia, Rhea, Luke & Ayan

Julia's first swim race last week - top lane

Luke riding his bike for the first time (from Feb...sorry this is so late!)

May 22 - Oink Oink

Monday morning, as we were leaving the dentist:

"Mom, did you see that girl in there? She asked me if Luke was my brother and I told her that we were watching him because his dad was out of town for work and his mother was in the hospital, sick with a leg thing. We offered to take him to the dentist since I had an appointment." - Julia (in reference to a little girl she was chatting with in the kid area while I was talking to the dentist and paying)

"OK, very interesting. What did Luke say while you were telling her this story?" - Mom

"He was playing with a train, I don't think he was even listening to me." - Julia

Julia and Jewel Mae

Oink Oink

Jewel Mae's Bunny

Rare Sighting! Yamo kids napping

They had a sleep over the other night in the green room, so cute! 

Beautiful flowers are starting to bloom

Adorable pic of the Julia, Luke and Emma

May 19 - Practice Meet

Happy Monday! We were at the pool around 6:40am Saturday morning for the Orcas practice meet. After setting up the chairs and blanket, Julia checked in (the kids have to check in before 7am or they are scratched). One of the coaches wrote down her event numbers on her arm and provided me with a sticker with the same info (that I attached to my shirt). Warm up started promptly at 7am and guess who the first girl in the pool was...that's right, Julia! After 2 laps it was time to get out, get warm and relax before the first event. At this point Luke said "Ok, let go home now. The meet's over." I had to break the news to him....it had not officially started yet. Needless to say, he was not excited about the early morning. His attitude quickly turned around when I bought him a donut about 30min later. 

For Julia's first ever swim meet race....she swam the breast stroke in the medley relay. You may be thinking "I didn't know she knew how to swim breaststroke." You are correct. She does not. Very few of the 8 and unders swim proper breaststroke and fly but they have them try anyway, it was pretty funny. After that, it was 25 (1 lap) free (she won her heat!), back, breast (won her heat! Completely illegal stroke however, hehe) and fly. As soon as she finished one race, it was almost time to go to the bullpen for the next race. Hannah swam all the same events are her so they were together most of the day. The meet was over around 1pm and the girls had a great time!

After coming home and resting for a little while, we rode bikes to the pool and swam for several more hours. When we got home.....they decided they needed more water time and played in the sprinkler for another hour. I love my water babies! 

After all that excitement for one day I thought for sure they were be exhausted and go to bed early. No dice! They went to bed at their normal time and were up early Sunday morning. 

It's too early for photos mom

Warm ups

Mom, I don't like the sun. But these nachos are delicious

JD the Meet Official!

May 13 - PineBrookWood Orca

Great news-Julia is a member of the PineBrookWood Orcas! They had practice last week Monday through Thursday and the tryouts were Friday. In years past, the kids went in heats and had to swim 25 yards (without touching the bottom, lane rope, etc). It was an official process from everyone we heard from. This year, the team has new coaches and they didn't do it that way. All of the kids start off practice by swimming 25 yards-Julia and 2 boys in her lane swam it no problem and the coach tapped them on the head and said "You're in." They moved to a new lane and resumed practice. Meanwhile....JD was waiting on the pool deck waiting for the "official tryout" that never happened. No worries, though. The first meet is this weekend and we will record her events! 

In other news, a new neighborhood is being built behind our house. When we bought our house, there was a row of trees, Texas brush (shrubby trees) and farmland with cows. I called the city before we bought it and they said there were no plans to develop the land. Fast forward a few years and a developer is now planning some expensive homes. They cut down a lot of the brush and left our row of trees for awhile...until a sad morning a few weeks ago when they clear cut everything. The kids were excited to see the trucks while I was practically in tears. After weeks of pushing dirt around (that's what it looked like anyway) they finally started digging a detention ditch behind our house. It is huge and the kids LOVE it. All they want to do it play in it. Usually, these ditches are landscaped and they put a sidewalk around it so it should look nice in a few years. Right now....not so much. 

Cutting down the row of trees behind of house..sniffle

Kids enamored with the trucks cutting down said trees

Why do developers clear cut EVERYTHING?!

Luke is obsessed with the trucks behind the house

Dystopian abyss

Luke's class

Favorite picture of me and my brothers

May 6 - May Sunshine

Happy Tuesday dimpled munchkin fans. It's officially May (how is this year already almost halfway over?) and we're squeezing in as many fun activities as we can before the heat and humidity overtake us. Last week Julia participated in a swim clinic at a local high school to get ready for swim team tryouts. It was a great experience. The kids were divided up by ability and she was in the beginners group with a total of 6 kids (all ages 5 and 6). Six high school swimmers were in the pool with them and they focused on a stroke per day (Monday/free, Tuesday/back, Wednesday/fly, Thursday/breast). The kids swam about 300 yards per day and she had fun. 

Friday was field day at North Pointe. The kids had snow cones, bounced in some inflatables and played a bunch of games on the playground. It was really fun!

On Saturday, the kids had a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese. Luke was complaining about it all day (claiming he didn't 'want to go because he was afraid of ChuckE) but once we got there, he didn't want to leave. After the party we went to gymfest at Lobo. You are probably wondering, what is gymfest? Imagine an unofficial, mini-gymnastics meet. All of the non-team kids practicing routines and perform them for their friends and family. They do rotations and get a small trophy at the end. It was really cute. After leaving the gym, we picked up our pool tags and went swimming in the neighborhood pool. It was around 90 outside with no humidity and the water was probably 77 degrees. It was cool but refreshing and we swam for almost 3 hours! 

On Sunday, Julia and JD ran a half mile in her school FunRun. JD said she was emotional running because 'she wasn't in the lead' but she ran the entire time and placed 4th out of the 8 kinder girls competing, so we are still proud of her. 

Field Day Fun

Luke and Isaac

Gym Fest

Waiting for adult swim to be over

Eating snacks-his favorite thing to do at the pool

Fun Run - Julia and Jocelyn

Ready-get set!

Almost at the finish!

Post game snack with her friend Shogo

Garden is in bloom

April 28 - Splashing into Spring

To celebrate this gorgeous spring weather, the kids and I went to the zoo yesterday to see the animals and play in the splash pad. Our neighbors (John, Kristin, Evey and Lauri) met us there and we had a blast. It was pretty warm (mid-80s with humidity) but there was a nice breeze all afternoon. After our zoo adventure (we were there for over 5H, I was exhausted!) we went to the Root's to see their new puppy, Riley. He's 3/4 miniature poodle, 1/4 golden retriever and 100% adorable. Julia and Emma loved carrying him around. Luke was trying to 'direct' him (little Napoleon that he is) and I don't think Amelia even noticed the little fluffball until we were leaving their house. Happy Monday everyone!

Splash pad fun

Posing with the elephants

Coloring is always a hit

Petting zoo

Riley

Black eye, day 5