Last Day of Summer

We made our last day of summer count by going on an adventure downtown.  We started in the City Market and the girls actually looked at shops with me!  Everyone was in a great mood and we made some great memories to finish off our summer.

Then they rode the streetcar for the first time.  They loved it!

We rode it to Union Station then walked the skywalk over to Crown Center for lunch and the Mr. Potato Head exhibit.

We stopped at the Power & Light district to find this rooftop park.  It is on top of a grocery store.  Hannah loves exploring downtown with all the tall buildings (kycapers as Olive calls them).  We even saw window washers.

We rode the streetcar back to City Market and bought some strawberries and surprised Steve at work.  It was a really fun day!

Summers are so sweet with these two.  And each summer is special.  We'll never have another summer with a five and seven-year-old.  The girls have always played well together, but this summer they were inseparable.  Best friends.  It was tough for both of them with Hannah in school all day in first grade.  Olive was overjoyed when school was out and she got to play with Hannah all day.  And play they did.  They would spend hours in the morning playing legos.  Or making up plays and puppet shows.  Or setting up a town with stuffed animals.  And we spent plenty of lazy afternoons at the park or swimming pool.  We actually got tan this summer!  And I don't think I've had a tan since before I had kids!  We had some firsts this summer: geocaching, tennis, first baseball game, first time diving for Hannah and going underwater for Olive, and exploring new places like Old Shawnee Town.  And we did all the usual summer "must-do" list: camping, kayaking, catching fireflies, swimming lessons, Corporate Challenge, and 4th of July parade.  I think I say this every year, but it was the best summer!

Olympics

The girls were inspired and set up their own Olympic games in the living room.  There were homemade posters, tickets, and medals.

 They made up all the events which included such things as horse racing across the room, long jump, bouncing balls, and high kicks.  Guess who won the kicks?  Finally cheerleading is paying off.

Science City with Finleys

Swimming

We usually get a Prairie Village pool membership when they go half-price halfway through the summer.  This year we found out there was no half-price option since Prairie Village changed their pricing structure (cheaper for individuals, no family memberships.)  I checked out our other options and it was actually cheaper to pay the non-resident Overland Park fee than to pay discounted resident pricing for Prairie Village.  What?!  AND Overland Park has FIVE different outdoor pools (and 1 indoor), while PV just has one.  Guess which membership we got?  The girls were very excited to check out all the pools. We went swimming pretty much every day for 3 weeks.  It was awesome.  I don't know if we'll ever go back to PV pool again!

#1 Tomahawk Ridge: awesome family slide that up to 4 people can go on at once.  The curvy slide goes under a waterfall.  Prettiest pool (in my opinion)

#2- Stonegate: great slide, large deep water area.  This is where we did swimming lessons.

#3 Bluejacket: large zero entry area, basketball goal

#4: Young's: 31 foot straight slide, awesome curvy slide, largest pool

#5 Marty: smallest pool, small innertube slide

Steve and Hannah liked Young's Pool best because of the slides.  The straight slide was crazy.  It is such a steep drop that I went airborne for a second! And at the end you are going so fast that fly across the water before you sink!  That was my one and only time doing it...and I like roller coasters.  It's the largest water slide Hannah has ever done and of course she LOVED it.  Olive liked Bluejacket because it had a large area for her to practice treading water.  I liked Young's for the best curly slide and I also liked Marty because it was small and there weren't many people.

Olive learned more this summer just from being at the pool than from swimming lessons.  We got her to go underwater with a mask for the first time!  Then she really started swimming using her arms and legs.  She also got brave enough to go under just holding her nose.  And Hannah swam across the long side of the pool for the first time!

Arboretum

We had a great day at the Overland Park Arboretum to see their special Enchanted Forest exhibit.  They had fairy houses along a trail and we completed a scavenger hunt to find different gnomes and fairies.  They loved it!  And we also saw our usual arboretum favorites: train garden and turtles/fish in the pond.

"It's so cute!"

Olive wished she could fly at the wishing well.

Roe Park with Walter

The new Roe Park is finally open!  We have been waiting for this all summer.  It has new playground equipment, nature play area, tennis courts, and a spray ground!  It is one of the coolest parks in the city...and it is only a mile from our house.  They tore down our swimming lesson pool to make the new park, but it was worth it!  Walter was in town, so he got to check it out with us for the first time.

with all the things to play on, their favorite was this log in the nature area

The nature play area is on the left and playground is on the right, with the spray ground behind it.  All of the grass and plants weren't quite ready so it looks a little sparse.

This slide is crazy fast in a wet swimsuit!

 My favorite place in the park:

Swimming Lessons

We had to go to a different pool for swimming lessons this year because our old one was torn down.  Sad.  Our old pool had about 4 different swimming lessons going at the same time with 2-4 kids per class (and last year Hannah was the only one in her class!).  This pool had 8 different swimming lessons at the same time, with 6 kids in each class.  The girls couldn't believe how many kids were in the pool!  I don't know if it was the large class sizes or maybe the teachers, but the girls didn't progress much in the two weeks.  We still had a good time, but I might have to rethink lessons for next year.

I did notice Hannah's back float improved this year.  She is great at the backstroke and back crawl now!

I didn't get a picture of it, but Hannah did her first real drive off the diving board!  It ended up being more of a belly flop, so I haven't talked her into attempting it again.  Here's her usual jump:

And Olive went down the slide for the first time.  Can you see the fear on her face?  She did not want to go again!