Gone Swimmin'

This afternoon the kids and I went swimming at one of the Amarillo Parks & Recreation pools (I think there are 4 or 5 pools throughout the city). This is the pool where they start taking lessons next Monday morning, so we wanted to be familiar with where it was, plus the kids have been waiting all summer to finally go swimming! (And in case you were wondering, it cost $9 for all 5 of us to swim.)

I was impressed with how big the main pool was. The majority of it was about 3'6" deep (with 3' in the shallowest and I'm not sure how deep it got at the other end because I never made it down there!). Hannah & Courtney could both touch at that depth, so they were so happy about that. (Hannah had been quite worried that she wouldn't be able to stand at all in the pool -- she is convinced that she can't swim if she can't touch the bottom, even though she does okay when she has her confidence up.)



Hayley was happy as could be to just kick around the pool in her floatie.


McKay was the only one who ventured over to the "play" area with sprays and buckets that dump on you:


The water kept turning off and we had to ask a lifeguard how to get it to turn back on -- you had to put your hand on the black top of the little pole to start the water up again. (McKay of course wanted to look this up online when we got home to find out exactly how it works.)

You can also see the small baby pool in background of the above picture -- it wasn't much of a pool and Hayley spent less than 5 minutes there before going back over to the big pool.

The biggest thing we noticed was that because of the wind (a constant around here!) the minute you got out of the water, you'd be freezing because of the wind. So everyone always wanted to get back in the water as quickly as possible. I wonder what that will mean when they have lessons if they have to sit up on the side of the pool very much -- they are going to be shivering and miserable!


They don't take hourly "safety breaks" like they did at The Woodlands pools (where the kids have to get out of the pool for 10-15 minutes), but they did take one later in the afternoon. That is always a good thing, because it's about the only way I can get everybody out of the pool when it's time to go home!



We all got a little sunburned, even though I put sunscreen on everybody. The one place I didn't put sunscreen is on my knees/thighs, and boy, I am feeling the pain tonight. None of the kids got sunburned on their knees/legs (and they didn't have suncreen there either) -- I'm guessing it's because I was also crouching down in the shallow water. We all have red cheeks and a few red shoulders too.


McKay wanted me to take this picture of him smiling under the water!


We'll be seeing lots more of this pool starting next week! I signed the kids up for two 2-week sessions (basically the whole month of July) three days a week!

Weekend Update

I figured I should post a quick recap of our weekend before we get started in a new week. Not that there's an awful lot to write about, but at least it will give you something new to read!

Brian's been busy up in the attic stringing cables before the Dish Network guy comes tomorrow morning. (Actually this will be the second time a Dish Network guy has come and I could write a long post on the first guy that came -- and left -- but I'm trying not to be negative, so I'll restrain myself.) Brian's having to put in new cables because he said most of the cables in the house are an older type of cable that can't be used. Plus, we have some specific requirements in regards to placement of the dish and cables because of our future remodel plans.

Courtney had to give a talk in Primary today about the temple. She did a great job, although I was a little worried right before Primary that she was going to chicken out on us. She had told me she wanted to sing "I Love to See the Temple" as part of her talk, but then right before Primary she said she changed her mind... then she changed it back... so I wasn't sure until we got to that part if she would do it or not. She decided (at the pulpit) that she wanted Hannah to sing with her, so Hannah was a great big sister and came up to sing. They did a great job! We should have had Hayley come up too because she knows the words as well. I did videotape them singing after church, but don't have all the stuff set up to transfer video over to the computer yet.

One other note about Courtney's talk -- she read quite a bit of it all by herself (after several practice run-throughs)! She's been picking up sight words and is entering the world of reading. Hopefully this summer I can sit down with her frequently with some of our early reader books and give her some more practice.

I've got the kids signed up to start swimming lessons in a week at one of the city pools and I had told them that we'd go swimming there once "for fun" before lessons started so they could be familiar with the pool. Since Brian's sister might be coming this week, I think we're going to try to go swimming tomorrow afternoon (if we get our chores done in the morning). And with Julie coming, maybe now I'll finally get out shopping for a real kitchen table -- yeah!

Just a couple of pictures to share. Who can resist some new cans of Play-Doh?


And I found these two little girls sitting up on our "stairs to nowhere" today telling stories to each other. Courtney was telling Hayley the story of when Dad (Brian) got run over by a tractor as a boy. I subbed in Courtney's Primary class a few months ago and told this story as the lesson was about Priesthood blessings. It was funny to hear the way she remembered the story -- the main thing she remembered was that Daddy's ear almost got ripped off, so she told Hayley all abuot how the tractor "ran over his ear".

And in case you're wondering, these stairs will be the stairs to our future upper level area over the garage with several more bedrooms. Brian came up last February after we bought the house and started this project (his parents come down to help him that week).

Finally, I wanted to share our attempts at a family picture last weekend. (One of these made it as our new blog header photo for the time being.) We decided to pull out the tripod before church and take a few shots -- the lighting wasn't the best and it was on the windy side as usual, but we're learning that's Amarillo!

Hope everyone has a great week!

A Day at the Zoo

Yesterday we took a little field trip to the Amarillo Zoo. We met several other moms there and had a great time! The Amarillo Zoo is quite small, but it's free! It is located in a large park with lots of big trees and picnic areas, one of the community pools, a small pond, a few playgrounds, etc. It was really nice! (And we are SO enjoying the lower humidity here!)

The kids by the spider monkeys, the first animals you see when you enter the zoo (and Hannah insisted on wearing her "fancy" hat):

We brought our wagon to hold all our "stuff" (and Hayley too) -- McKay of course wanted the job of wagon-puller (most of the time, anyway).

There were a couple of roaming peacocks that the kids loved chasing around:

Between the four moms that were there, we had 15 kids! Our own little summer camp group outing. (All but one in this picture.)

Loved this picture of the girls!

Can't blog about going to the zoo without at least a couple of animal pictures. The most unusual animal we saw were the wallabys:

Here is Courtney by the bears:

They also had lions, a tiger, horses, goats, a longhorn, foxes, bobcats and a coyote. (The kids were a little disappointed there were no elephants or giraffes, but it was a small zoo.)

A little time on the playground before we left:

After the zoo, I took the kids over to the park for a picnic lunch (the other moms went home):

Then we drove around the park a little and stopped by the pond to see all the ducks.

Lots of hunting for feathers!

And I couldn't resist taking the close-ups before we left!

Discovery Center

Last week we went to the local Discovery Center with our new friends & neighbors (well, about as close as we can get to neighbors). We bought a family membership and hope to go back lots! We didn't even get to see the Space Theater they have (apparently they have a cool laser-type show).

I took lots of pictures (no surprise there), so here are just a few highlights!

Here we are at the entrance with our friends (mom Emily and her 6 kids -- the oldest just turned 8!):

The DHDC letters stand for Don Harrington Discovery Center.

Courtney checking out one of the Amazing Body exhibits:

McKay getting measured to see how tall he is -- all you have to do is stand between the posts and a computer voice tells you how tall you are!

Hannah & Courtney tried out these communication devices. Hannah would speak into one:

And Courtney would talk back from the other side of the room:

It was pretty cool how well they worked!

Then we found the bubbles (I think every Discovery Center of Children's Museum has a bubble exhibit):

Their brand new exhibit was called "Raise the Roof" and had a bunch of displays about different types of construction and construction methods. McKay was totally in his element with this exhibit to build trusses (and he spent a lot of time there):

Here are Courtney & Hayley with the magnetic town:

And finally, they have several fish tanks with fun fish to look at!

It was an awesome place -- and only 10 minutes from our house. We will definitely be going back lots this summer!

Rainbow Beauty

Tonight I was putting the kids to bed and noticed that the lighting outside seemed a little different than usual, so I peeked out of the blinds and saw a beautiful, bright double rainbow! I got so excited and told the kids and ran to grab my camera (although pictures can never do a rainbow justice -- the colors were much prettier in person!).

When we got outside, we realized that it was a full double rainbow -- we could see the complete arches! My camera lens wasn't wide enough to get it all in one shot, but here is the other side:

And the neatest part was that it seemed to be framing our view of downtown Amarillo (although you couldn't see it that great because of the clouds).

The kids were thrilled -- I don't know if they've ever really seen a rainbow before. McKay kept saying over and over again how it was so "rare" to see a full double rainbow and Hannah made the comment that "We don't live in tornado valley, we live in rainbow valley!"

As a P.S. to this post, the rainbow got me reminiscing a little about how I used to "collect" rainbow things. When I was about 12 or so, I decided I needed to collect something and have something that was my "favorite," so I chose rainbows. I would look for things with rainbows on them and I made a huge paper rainbow (colored with markers) to hang on the wall above my bed. I still have a special place in my heart for rainbows!

Critter Sightings

We've seen lots of interesting critters already in the few weeks that we've been here. Some I've already mentioned:

Rabbits, which seem to be quite abundant and not afraid to get close to the house (hmm... this could prove to be a challenge if we decide to try to start a garden)

Toads, which are big and fat and fun to catch...

A couple that I wasn't able to get a picture of:

Snakes - Courtney spied one slithering across the driveway -- my guess was it was 3-4 feet long and I didn't see (or hear) a rattle, but then I didn't really want to get too close to it myself. (We have been told there are rattlesnakes around here.)

Coyotes (we think, anyway) -- We saw a larger creature running across the field as we drove home one day. At first, Brian thought it was a fox, but I wondered if it was in the big cat family. My friend who lives nearby said it was probably a coyote as they are common in this area.

And some new friends:

Turtles- This one was scared and had pulled its head into its shell. Courtney again was the one to spot this guy in the front yard.

Baby Birds - We spotted a bird's nest on top of a speaker that's mounted up in the corner of our back patio. (The birds fly in and out frequently and have been known to also fly into our bedroom window repeatedly in the morning!) A few days ago we noticed that there were baby birds in the nest -- I think we've counted three (although it's hard to see for sure).

And the most recent visitor, Flying Ants. These guys showed up all over our back patio and one section of the roof a few days ago. They would occasionally fall off the roof and then on the patio they would be running around and grouping in these clusters:

They were gone the next day, but have come back a couple of times. At first we didn't know what they were, but Brian caught a couple so we have been trying to do research online.

We think they are maybe carpenter ants and from what I've been able to deduce, this is their mating season, when usually after a rain the winged males and potential queens come out in large numbers to mate. We have seen quite a few on one spot on the roof, so we need to check it out more closely and find out if they have a nest up there (I really hope not).

I will be glad to see these last ones go! I have found several dead ones in the house, but fortunately they seem to be staying outside for the most part.

Who will show up next?