The Little Gym

One of Z's friends from our ward invited him to attend a summer class at The Little Gym on August 13th. Z had fun jumping, tumbling and playing on the equipment. Go Z!!

My camera is driving me crazy -- OK it is probably me, but most of the pictures look terrible, but I think you will get the idea!!

Z's summer music class

Z was invited by a boy in his primary class to take a music class this summer. It was through a company called Kidstunes -- this company teaches music in preschools and daycares, but this was a special class just for the summer. His teacher was the Relief Society President in our ward. Each week his class "traveled" to a new country. During class he learned songs and listened to music from each country. Z also learned about instruments, the children, the food, how to say hello in each language, the flag and other fun things about the country he was visiting. At the end of each class he got a stamp in his music passport -- he loved that part! He really loves music and enjoyed going each week!!

Swimming lessons

I knew that I wanted Z to take swimming lessons this summer. In Utah I grew up next to a swimming pool and I would swim everyday, all day long. I want my kids to love swimming and to be able to be safe in a swimming pool. I had heard about a park about 20 minutes away that provided lessons. I signed up online for July 28th - July 31st (I know I don't know why it has taken me so long to post) and it seemed to work out great. When we got there we found out that only kids over 5 years old could be in a class (of course this was not said on the web site) so Z had to be in private lessons. We paid $50 for 4 days of lessons -- ouch!! What was crazy was there were only 4 kids in the entire pool -- even kids over 5 got private lessons because no one else signed up for lessons. Despite the mix up with private lessons, the biggest problem was that Z had 3 different teachers. The girl that we had on Tuesday and Wednesday was really good and I wish that we could have had her the entire time. Z did really well as soon as he would decide to be brave and also to stop talking his teacher's ear off. He would try to convince them to play games and do things his way :) He did great though and it is a nice pool. I wish we had a swimming pool close by -- we are going to have to figure out some more places to go swimming so he can practice.

I am really upset because the card in our camera decided to do strange things and lots of my pictures and movies didn't work :( The only pictures we have are from his first day.

Tax Free Weekend

Every year on the first weekend in August NC has a tax free weekend. During these days you don't pay sales tax on clothes, school supplies, some sporting equipment, computers, etc. It is supposed to help you get ready for school. We went and got Z his school clothes and some school supplies. I had never heard of this and I thought is was such a good idea. How cool is that?

Stake Pioneer Activity

On July 26th our stake had a pioneer activity in Chapel Hill which is about 45 minutes away. It was held on the beautiful grounds of the Institute building of the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. Z got to run an obstacle course, compete in the stick pull, make a corn husk doll for B, try to spit watermelon seeds, and play a buffalo chip toss game :) I think that I had great pictures and some good video of this, except for some reason the card in our camera did not record any of it. When I tried to download a bunch of pictures, all of this day was gone and a lot of Z's swimming lessons. I was so upset -- when Jer and I were first married we hardly ever took pictures, but with kids I want lots of pictures and I can't believe there are two activities that I don't have the pictures of. Z wore a pioneer hat to the stake activity. My parents bought him the hat in Nauvoo when we met them there while we were traveling to NC. I wanted my parents to see him in it so I took this picture later to post.

Swimming

A few Mondays ago a family in our ward (he also works with Jer) invited us over to their neighborhood pool for FHE swimming and watermelon. It was B's first time swimming and for the rest of us the first time this summer -- oh how I miss Jean's pool :) B loved the water and Z was a little fish as usual -- we had a great time!!