Swimming double header

Two weekends ago we had a swimming double header.  On Friday night we met up with our dear friends the Grays and swam at their country club pool.  No one was there but us and a few other people!  It was so much fun to have the place practically all to ourselves.  Our kiddos liked that a lot!

I tried food "pouches" out on the girls for the first time.  They both loved it and went bonkers when I held it for them to feed it to them.  They wanted to do it all by themselves and pushed me away.  These are really handy to have on outings where the girls need to eat at the same time as us.  I get to eat at the same time as them!  Maybe I'll get to have fewer cold meals?  The girls also got their feet in the water at the pool and enjoyed being held a lot by all of us adults!

 

Henry loved being with Kate and Jillian.  We had a play date with them earlier in the week so when we got to the pool he was very excited to see them again  The three of these kiddos were practically inseparable at the pool.  Hank kept calling them "princesses".  He has been doing that a lot lately whenever he sees something frilly.  He thinks anything frilly belongs to a princess.  I do not know where he gets this stuff from.  

Kate and Hank enjoy more dinner right before we were heading home...all showered up and in their jammies.  He didn't get to bed until 9pm this night because we stayed at the pool way past bedtime.  He kept telling me on the way home "Mom it's really late".  So cute!

The next day we met up with the Chens and went to their pool at the JCC in Palo Alto.  This place was like a miniature amusement park.  Crazy! Hank loved all of the water shooting out of stuff.

Fun frog slide.  Hank spent quite a lot of time going down this slide repeatedly.

Leon and Max.

Sandy and I hung out with the girls on the sidelines.  Ruby enjoyed getting some fun time with Sandy.

  
I think we are rapidly approaching the end of the good run we've had the past 10.5 months with the girls being chill in stroller.  They have had enough and are ready to enjoy the world just like Hank gets to do.  When we go places now they do well in the stroller for a while but then they start letting me know they want to get in the action.  They either want to keep strolling or get out.  I have been pretty lucky I would say.

-a

Pool party!

  

Our friends Nick & Lorianne had a pool party about a week ago and it was a fun time!  Hank and Brett spent a lot of time in the pool while the rest of us lounged on the patio enjoying their gorgeous home and eating delicious Mediterranean food!  Brett came prepared to swim since we knew there was no way Hank could hang out by a pool and not go swimming. 

Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of Nick & Lorianne or the Chens.  We had a great time with the Millers and Kavals and the girls and Hank enjoyed all of the extra attention!   (Even if it does look as if Charlotte is frightened of Peter!)

-a

Happy Independence Day!

We had a great 4th of July holiday today!  Our day was jam packed with celebrations!

First up, our friends Leslie and Steve are members of the cabana club in our neighborhood and they invited us to the party at their pool.  We met up with them around lunch time and stayed all afternoon. 

 

Hank is starting swim lessons at the club on Monday with a personal instructor.  He is excited!

 

The girls wore swim suits today for the first time!  I didn't get proper pictures of them posing in their suits.  Bummer.  They looked so adorable!  The girls were in dire need of a nap at the pool so I took them home to rest.  We let Hank skip his nap today and he stayed at the pool with Brett until almost dinner time.  Hank cried the whole way home from the pool because he was so sad to leave.  When he got home he asked to put on his swim suit again so we got out a clean and dry one for him to wear to our next stop...the neighborhood block party.

 Before we left for the block party we tried to get the kiddos to pose for a picture with their flags.  This was about as good of a picture as we could get.  The rest looked like this...

 

 

 

 

All decked out in red, white and blue strolling through the neighborhood to get to the party.

Charlotte

Ruby

Hank leading the way.  Extremely excited for the party because he heard there was going to be a bounce house there.

The Santa Clara Fire Department brought one of their engines over to the party and hung out for a while.  They hooked up a hose and Hank was really interested in what they were doing.

Fascinated by the firemen working on their hose.  He carried his flag all the way from our house to the party.

Hank's first foray into water balloons happened today.  He loved it and kept running over to get a new balloon every time he broke one.  I think we'll be doing water balloons at our house soon.

 Brett was in a watermelon eating contest...

 ...and he WON!  SO HILARIOUS!!!  Hank was fascinated by the concept of "racing" to eat.  He had a sly smile on his face as he watched Brett go.

Brett and Hank shooting the breeze with a fire fighter.

They showed kids how to shoot the water hose.  How cool is that???

Hank bounced like crazy in the bouncy house.  He bounced during the little kid times and also when it was only supposed to be big kids.  He was unstoppable and refused to get out.  Brett and I kinda liked the fact that he was entertained so we let him stay.  The bad thing about bouncy houses is that Hank doesn't understand his own strength and he takes kids out.  He made an 8 year old cry today.  oops!  The only way we got Hank to come home with us was he accidentally slid out the front door of the bouncy house and we snatched him up and plopped him in the stroller.  He thought about resisting but he was too exhausted and just gave up.  It took us a few minutes to say bye to our friends and by the time we were walking home both girls had fallen asleep in our front packs and Hank was starting to fade too since it was well past their bed times.  Once we got home everyone was happy to get to bed!  (No fireworks for this crew...we couldn't bear keeping them up late since they had already missed so much sleep in the afternoon.  Maybe next year!)

I am pretty sure today was the funnest day of Hank's life so far.  Swimming for hours, checking out a fire truck, spraying the fire hose, playing with water balloons, and bouncy endlessly in a bounce house.  Sounds like the perfect day for Hank!  It was great for us too!

We are so thankful to live in this great country!  Happy Independence Day!

-a

Swimming!

Hank had a blast swimming this morning with some of our friends!  It was his first time in a wading pool and he loved it.  Every time he went under water on accident he would pop up laughing and get excited.  He loved scooting around on his tummy and pretending he was swimming! 

-a