Brooke's Swim Lessons

Brookie started swim lessons yesterday. I had to get in the water with her and Suzanna was there to cheer us on!

It was a lot of fun, but the temperature dropped a little bit and her lips turned blue - I felt bad!

She had fun for the most part, she's not afraid of the water at all - last year I started taking her to the pool when she was only 4 months old. She has a little pool here at home and likes to play in it and she has one at her Grandma and Grandpa Collin's house, too. So, she's bound to be a little fish!

She learned to splash, kick, scoop ice cream, put her face in the water (which she was doing last year) and jump in off the side. Here are some pictures of the evening

This is a picture of her jumping in off the side of the pool. She's only holding on to my fingers and though I was suppose to let her come up, I'm pretty sure I probably lifted her out! (sheesh it's the first lesson!) Anyway, sorry this picture is so small but .. uh... you probably can't tell but I was leaning slightly forward and after seeing these pictures I now know that I have a wardrobe malfunction and need a different bathing suit.... I'll leave it at that! :)

Here is one of several times that she went under water. Look how relaxed her legs are - no fear!

And we both survived! I think I look a bit more distressed than she does. Kidding, it was fine and I think if the temperature hadn't dropped she would have really loved it. We'll see what the next few nights bring. I'm hoping before the end of summer she is swimming like a fish!

Suzanna - what can I say about the girl. She is such a blessing in my life. This little girl seems so insightful to me for a 9 year old. There was something on TV about Tim Russert and they were talking about risk factors for a heart attack and they mentioned all the ones we all know -including being overweight and diabetes. Suzanna looked at me and goes... "Hey, I don't want you to die. Listen to this show." Yes ma'am! :) Anyway, she is doing great and she spends every day up at the park at the summer day camp. She is really having fun - I can tell by the huge smile on her face at the end of every day and the stories she can't wait to tell me. She has become so much more social in the past few months - she has lots of new friends at camp and seems to be doing really well.

When day camp gets out, I go to the gym and pick her up and then she comes to my office for the last half hour with me. I give her little things to do to help out and she always does them and is really quite helpful. Well, the other day, as we were walking out the office to leave - Suzanna was ribbing me about something, just being a little bit of a smart arse... and I said "Hey... not nice." One of my friends in the office said..."Um, unfortunately that was so much like something YOU would do you have NO way to deny that she's starting to act like you and pick up on your personality traits." The even funnier thing is that Suzanna and I have this little hand action that we do to each other when one says or does something kinda silly...we looked at each other and did it at exactly the same time. So... I hope and pray every day that I am having some sort of a positive influence on her and that her picking up on some of my personality traits isn't going to drive her proud poppa right to the looney bin! :)

She's doing very well in softball - though she doesn't have the fire in her belly I was hoping she would have. Who knows, maybe it will come. She's is really getting alot better at fielding, catching, throwing and batting. She has two games this week and I'm hoping to get some action shots. Mike actually records the games and I might see if I can figure out how to put a video clip up here.

I'll probably try to update again this week - I have some great new pictures of her and brooke that I had done at Walmart.

I'm on my lunch hour and have to get back to work - everyone have a great week!