Summer Time

 

And the living is easy ...

Once baseball ended, Connor's summer truly began. It started with a trip to visit Grandma and Grandpa at their cabin on the lake. Mommy and brothers joined them on the weekends, but Connor stayed during the week. And he made the most of his time, as you can see.

Other adventures have included trips to the movies (Monsters University and Despicable Me 2), a local minor league baseball game, a trip to a regional amusement and water park, a music festival and fourth of July fireworks event, another trip to the lake, and now another trip with Grammy and Pappy.

This time Connor is on an island that will take him back in time. There are no cars, just bikes and walking paths. There are fancy hotels and horse-drawn carriage rides. There's dinner in the formal restaurant (for which we had to purchase dress clothes, since our kids are not big on anything other than athletic pants and tee shirts).

Here's his first day ...

Summer Days at Home ...

When the weather cooperates (meaning it's not raining every single day or that it's not unseasonably cold for our part of the world), the boys have been enjoying the backyard pool this summer.

Sawyer loves it the most. He could stay in it all day, every day, when the water temperature is decent. Xander likes to jump, but his love is hit or miss. Connor would probably tie Sawyer for loving it the most, but he hasn't been home much of the summer. So he's not been in it as much as the other two.

And we'll save his adventures for another day (because there are many, and it's going to take a while) ...

Fearless

Fearless. Never mind that he's the youngest, I'm pretty sure Xander is one of the most fearless people that I've ever met. He's not afraid to try anything. He watches everything, studies everything, and he's always ready to try it out himself. He watched from the boat for a few minutes, as Uncle Brian, Cousins Austin and Kyndal, and Connor climbed up some cliffs and jumped into the lake.

A few minutes was all it took.

"This one," he said to me, pointing hard at the cliffs. I shrugged and said why not. I told him he'd have to swim over there. He proceeded to jump off the front of the boat (something he'd seen Connor do, but he'd never done before) and to swim over the the base of the cliffs. I called out to Uncle Brian and the others, who were looking out for him and helped him navigate the rocky cliff without shoes. They took him on the shorter cliff first, just to see if he would like it. He jumped, promptly climbed back up and pointed his fingers again at the taller cliff where the big kids had been jumping.

"This one," he said again. I could here him clearly from my place with Grandpa on the boat (and Sawyer who was happily swimming behind the boat and had no intentions of joining the rest of the jumpers).

So up he went, to the high cliff. Uncle Brian showed him where to jump, told him to jump out. He looked slightly hesitant at first. Connor jumped to show him how it was done. And that was all it took. He jumped in right after him (that's Connor's head in the water in the photo above). And they jumped and jumped and jumped. Xander probably would have kept on jumping. He eventually swam back out to the boat with the others.

And that's the story of how Xander went cliff diving for the first-time ever. On the big cliff. With cheers from his family. And also the random boaters who were also swimming nearby and on the cliffs. Apparently they were impressed that the "little guy," as they called him, was jumping, too.

Fearless.

The rest of the cliff diving photos are here.

Fourth of July

Clearly we're a little behind on our posting. For the first time, the boys went downtown to watch the big fireworks. Our city hosted two different nights, Thursday (the actual holiday) and Friday. We opted out of Thursday, mostly because of the rain but also because the twins both fell asleep before 10 o'clock that night, which rarely happens. Friday we opted in.

Connor and Daddy went with Grammy and Pappy to watch the music festival that hosted the second night of fireworks. Since we didn't think the twins would think much of the music or the long day, I opted to stay home with them. I wasn't sure if we'd make it downtown to watch the fireworks or not. But Xander kept hearing fireworks go off all around us, and he kept asking to see fireworks. So I packed them up and headed downtown around 9 o'clock. We parked on a side street close the stadium where the festival was being held. It was still raining off and on, so we turned the truck around both to give the boys a dry place to watch and also to be facing the right direction when it was time to leave (ahead of the thousands of people parked at the stadium for the whole event). We had amazing front-row seats to the fireworks show (along with several other families who were doing the same thing we did, just parking outside the stadium to watch).

I forgot to pack the boys noise-canceling headphones. I was a little worried about that. But they did fine. Both held their hands over their ears at times, and Sawyer kind of hid in the bottom of my truck, but he didn't take his eyes off of the show. I think they really enjoyed watching the big fireworks. Both of them still ask to look at the pictures I took (my photos are the screen saver on my laptop, so they see them scrolling through). Xander will say "See fireworks pictures" and both boys will sit down in front of the laptop to revisit the show.

I'm calling it a success, despite the rain and the lack of headphones. Maybe we'll eventually work our way up to doing the whole festival with the rest of the family. One step at a time ...

At the Club

Last year the boys outgrew the very safe, very contained children's area at the country club where Grammy and Pappy (who are members) invite us to swim. It makes our days at the pool a little more interesting.

Now we move between the three big pools. The family pool has the slide, which all three boys love. The dive pool has two diving boards, which Connor and Xander both love (I'm pretty sure this is the main reason Xander has taught himself some very basic swimming). Sawyer thinks he would like it, but so far we've not managed to get him off the end of the diving board. He just stands out on the edge and bounces. And then we pull him back before the lifeguards (or other people wanting to dive) get upset. The last pool is just a swim pool. There are lanes on one half and free swimming in medium depth (4 feet on the edges, 5 feet in the middle).

On a trip a few weeks back, I took Sawyer and Xander toward the end of the day when the pool tends to be less crowded. Connor was off on one of his many summer adventures, which I'll save for another post. We still moved around. Xander wanted to stay mostly in the dive pool and the family pool with the slide. Sawyer was content in the family pool, until it closed (earlier than the others, probably so they can down staff some of the lifeguards).

Just one of the many ways the twins continue to grow up on us. It's hard to believe we've outgrown the kiddie pool and toys, and now we've moved into diving and sliding into deep waters. So it goes ...