Random Summer Pictures

After a very busy spring, it was nice to have an lazy and unscheduled summer.  Hannah took tennis lessons.  Both girls took swimming lessons.  And we took our longest family vacation to date to the Black Hills.  Other than that, we had nothing planned.  It is very relaxing to not be tied to a schedule!  In our free time we did "homeschool" that was the same country curriculum I taught my 2nd graders.  We read over a hundred books about Brazil, USA, and China this summer!  I taught my students about Canada, but the girls opted for USA instead and we did that around the 4th of July so it worked out perfectly.  We'll probably take a break on the homeschool now that they are back in real school.  Here are some of the other random things we did this summer.

Prairie Village Art Fair

3D movie on national parks to get us excited about our vacation

We went to our usual kid events in June.  This year we saw a puppet show and live bird show.

Hannah is finally tall enough to ride the tandem bike with Steve!  She has been waiting years for this.  They have taken a few bike rides together.  The longest was 1.5 hours!

Hannah went ice skating for the first time at a friend's birthday party!  She has been looking forward to this for years, too.

fun at a new park

building huge block cities

Our board game of the summer was Carcasonne.  It is so much fun now that the girls are old enough to play real games with us!  When Steve worked from home he could play with us after lunch.

We cleaned their rooms (a major undertaking!) and reorganized closets to hang their shirts instead of fold them.  This is Hannah's.

A Friday night concert in Franklin Park was even more awesome with balloons.  A pink sword for Hannah and a purple tiger for Olive.

science experiments

In July it was too hot to do anything but swim.  So we did.

We went to this park at the beginning of the summer and Olive only climbed about 2 feet off the ground before she wanted to come down.  At the end of summer she climbed up here with no fear!

And Olive got freckles this summer!

Zoo

Our last adventure of the summer was a trip to the KC Zoo.

Olive is tall enough to ride without an adult!  These two thought it was super cool to ride without mom.  Wasn't it just a minute ago I was riding holding a baby on my lap and a toddler on my side?

Swimming Lessons

Although we didn't make much progress in swimming lessons last year, the girls really wanted to go back to the same pool.  So we gave it one more shot.  And it was much better!  Although we did the same session as last year, it was a little less crowded.  Only 6 lessons going at once instead of 8.  Olive had the maximum class size of 6, but there were only 3 kids in Hannah's class.  

So this was the first year Olive was in real swimming lessons.  The past years she was in the preschool class because...she wasn't in school.  They did things like blow bubbles, put their ears in the water to "listen to fish," use kickboards, and float with the teacher holding them.  That was all in her comfort zone.  But this year she aged out of preschool and she had to take "first wave," which is jumping in deep water, swimming with your head underwater, treading, and back floating.  She did NOT want to do these things.  And when Olive doesn't want to do something...watch out!  She spent the first lesson screaming, crying, and refusing to do anything her teacher asked her to do.  So we went home and had a long conversation about being scared, trying new things, emotions vs. behaviors, and what good behavior in lessons looks like.  And we talked through some strategies she could try when she feels scared (deep breaths, saying "I can do this!)  I knew how Olive felt because I was always scared to put my head underwater...and consequently never learned.  I didn't want that for her.  But more importantly than learning to swim, I wanted her to learn some life lessons about trying new things, controlling her behavior, etc.  And the next day she did it!  She apologized to her teacher for her behavior and then she used her strategies to calm herself down and at least TRY new things in the pool.  It wasn't perfect, but she TRIED.  And she was so proud of herself, I've never seen her smile so big!  I cried watching her because it is pretty amazing to watch your kid push through her fear be so proud.  It was a transformative experience for her.  Swimming lessons were worth it just for that....but she also learned to swim!  She went from refusing to even let me hold her in a backfloat position, to backfloating across the pool by herself in deep water!  She learned to tread.  Not just for 30 seconds to pass her level, but for 1 minute!  She put her head underwater for the first time without holding her nose!  She became a swimmer!

And great things happened for Hannah, too.  Her class was so small they went through all the requirements for third wave...and fourth wave, too!  She passed two swimming levels in one session!  She was already a swimmer, but she learned the breaststroke, sidestroke, and flip turns.  She swam laps across the pool for the first time!  

Hannah is with her class in the front and Olive is in the deep water in the back.

The last day they get free time to do slides or diving boards.

Olive's first time going down the slide by herself!

Two proud girls.  Olive passed first wave and Hannah passed fourth wave.  (They have candy in their mouths.)

Variety KC Playground

This summer we participated in the "park passport" scavenger hunt.  We went to parks in six different cities in NE Johnson County.  Each park had 3 things to find like "What group sponsors this park?" or "How many holes are in the climbing wall?"  Only one of them was really new park for us (Campbell Park in Merriam), but this one is a new playground.  Leawood Park's playground got new equipment and it is now named Variety KC.  Hannah said it is her new favorite park.  

They have these roller slides at pumpkin patches, but I've never seen it in a park before.  They are awesome!

Even more awesome: a double zipline!

Tiger Olive is scary.

Omaha Zoo

It seems like we go to the Omaha Zoo a lot, but I guess we just go to Omaha.  Olive didn't remember the zoo, which surprised us at the time, but it makes sense after looking at the blog.  The last post I found was when she was just three years old!  We were happy to be back and show her the sights, plus lots of new exhibits!  Our first stop was the brand new Children's Adventure Trails exhibit that just opened this summer.  It was a huge hit!  There were so many fun things to do.  We stayed here a long time and could have stayed even longer.

You tugged yourself across the moat by pulling on the rope.

This is up in the tree house where we climbed around beside the monkeys.

It was a very hot day, but luckily there were lots of places to cool off.  This exhibit had a river to walk in and a waterfall to walk through.  So you'll notice everyone is soaking wet.

This was a very steep slide and we didn't think Olive would do it.  She is becoming fearless like her big sis.

The adults had as much fun as the kids.

Then we went to the Alaskan Adventure (also new to us).  It was definitely the coolest sprayground I've ever seen!

Casey is trying to splash me.

Again, we got soaking wet.

Olive couldn't wait to see a white tiger (her favorite animal).  It was hard to get a picture with him, so we did the sign instead.

In the desert dome.

Touch tank in the aquarium.

The first time we went to the Omaha Zoo, Hannah was disappointed they did not have elephants.  They have them now!  Plus they built the largest indoor elephant habitat in North America.

And outside we got see an elephant fight!

 We saw so many bats in the jungle!  And they fly right over your head.  I was not a fan.

Behind the waterfall.

We closed the zoo down!  And we still didn't have time for the butterfly and insect pavilion.  It was a super fun day.  I couldn't believe how much the zoo has changed in just three years...and it was awesome before all the new things!