Summer Summary

As the kids headed back to school today, I thought I would summarize the summer we just had!  It was a whirlwind; it rained for about a month, but we had a lot of fun!

We started the summer by Joey learning how to swim!  We brought his preschool teacher, Mrs. Tuttila, to our neighborhood pool every day for a week for semi-private lessons with Joey & his buddy Hadley.  At the beginning of the week, I didn't even think Joey could go under water without water wings.  By the end of the week, he was even using his arms for strokes, and swimming the width of the pool!  He's somehow lost the arm motion over the summer, but he's still doing great, and has a lot of confidence.  Melanie snagged a couple of lessons from Mrs. Tuttila as well, and continues to love to swim.  Both kids took 2/week lessons through their summer camp, and we ended the summer with Melanie in level 8 and Joey in level 2 at camp.

The kids spent the summer at day camp through GROW at Pleasant View Elementary.  The camp consisted of weekly field trips, the previously-mentioned swim lessons, another swim "free day" each week, and weekly trips to the library.  It was good for them socially, and kept them out of trouble :)  Additionally, Melanie got bussed from "regular" camp to one week of volleyball camp and one week of basketball camp; easy ways for her to be exposed to those sports on a short-term basis.  Joey had Safety Camp toward the end of the summer; a kindergarten prep class offered through the schools as well.

They had some fun overnights; Melanie went with Aunt Julie to celebrate Molly's 7th birthday in a Sellersburg hotel with a pool, each kid stayed solo overnight with Gigi & Poppy, there were sleepovers at Grandma & Papa's, we had the Boscherts overnight once, Melanie had her first non-family/family friend sleepover by having Alexsandra overnight (Molly & Aunt Julie joined for that as well).

We took two brief trips; a day trip to Newport, Kentucky (just over the bridge from Cincinnati), with Gigi, Aunt Julie, and Molly, and a weekend trip to Holiday World, just the four of us.

We got a basketball goal installed, attended the Hotdog Festival and the State Fair, co-hosted a Walk for Wishes team to raise money for Make a Wish, and did a week of Vacation Bible School (Joey's first year!)

Cheesy summary, but I do want to continue with the blog as my own reference point, so I'm just putting it all here!