Practice Makes Perfect

We had our second swim lessons this afternoon. I must say we are making progress as AP didn't run from the instructor tonight! She actually was happy at the end of the lesson instead of crying and she kept repeating "I did a good job!" C is learning some specific strokes and is loving being in the water.

After dinner tonight we went to the playground at the school where C will go to kindergarten. I like that he will already feel at home there because we have played there several times. Tonight he took his new training roller blades to practice.

It was beautiful weather here today and a little break from all the humidity. I think pleasant is the word that describes it the best :)

Cousin Camp

I have termed the last week "Cousin Camp" because we spent the entire week doing fun and exciting things with the cousins (AP, C, and my niece, S) at Nanna's house.

Tuesday we spent the day at King's Island. As you can tell from the pictures in the last post it was long day crammed full of every fun thing to do that the kiddos were big enough for. AP just hit 36 inches and C just hit 48 inches. This opened up a whole new world of opportunities for them. AP was finally big enough for the swings. I remember last year she cried and cried when brother got on the swings and she couldn't. C, my roller coaster man, was big enough for a few new ones and still really loved the ones that he rode last year. At one point he said "I love making myself scared!" Oh my! They were both big enough for a few bigger water slides at the water park and really liked the one that you ride the inner tube down.

Tuesday night Nanna's friend cooked us a really good lasagna that we didn't end up getting home to eat until around 10pm!

On Wednesday we took the cousins to the pool at Nanna's community center. It's not your average community center pool either. The kid pool is HUGE and never gets over 18 inches deep. There are slides and lots of cool water features. AP got brave enough to swim under water! That one swim lesson may have done more for than she thinks :)

Wednesday night Nanna's friend cooked dinner for us again. This time he grilled brats and then shot off fireworks for us.

Thursday we took the cousins to Parky's Farm.

There were so many things for the kiddos to do there. The heat did slow us down a little and probably cut our adventure a little shorter. But, we still had fun going on a tractor/wagon ride, looking at all the animals, riding horses, and playing in the playbarn. One of the pigs there was the biggest pig I have ever seen. They said it would get up to 900 lbs!

Thursday night Nanna cooked us a really yummy chicken dinner. Then the kiddos decided to play in the dirt. Who knew that would be so entertaining?! I think they had more fun in the dirt than they did at the farm! It definitely required cousin baths after all that dirt diggin'.

Friday Nanna and I took the cousins to Parky's Ark, which was a little splash park down the street from the farm that we went to the day before. We had heard about it from some moms at the farm. It was a really cute little splash park with lots of things for the kiddos to do, but, unfortunately, we just chose the wrong day to go. There was a school that arrived there just as we did and there simply wasn't enough room for us all there. There also wasn't enough supervision of the school kiddos and I think that was driving Nanna crazy as they kept taking toys away from our kiddos. So after about an hour there we left and went back to Nanna's community center.

Friday night we went to Smokey Bones to eat. I entertained the kiddos outside while we were waiting for our table.

And then yesterday cousin camp came sadly to a close. But not before we made the cousins endure a trip to IKEA :) They were well rewarded with ice cream, or "erkin" as my niece says it.

Kings Island in Pictures (In Reverse Order)