Swimming Lessons

The girls just started on their second session of swimming lessons, so I thought I'd better hurry up and put up some pictures from their first session. We're doing back-to-back sessions this year (two weeks each) and overall they seem to like it.



Hayley has shown no fear of the water and jumps right in.

Courtney was feeling a little discouraged at one point that she was the youngest in her group and it was "too hard," but she is doing better and is working on changing her doggie paddle stroke to a regular freestyle. It helps that she absolutely loves her new teacher for this session.

Hannah had some initial fear of the deep water and going off the diving board. She seemed to overcome that a little and is becoming more confident where she can't touch the bottom.

We've gone swimming a couple of times just for fun as well -- we need to get out more often but it seems that there's always stuff going on and work to do at home. I'm really enjoying that the kids are old enough now to be more independent in the water and not need me in there with them constantly. I get in sometimes, but it's nice to also sit in a pool chair and read while they splash around!

Adventures in Books

It's no secret that reading has become one of my favorite pasttimes in the last couple of years. I remember that I used to wonder how anyone ever found time to read, but I don't seem to have that problem anymore (just ask my husband and kids). Maybe it's because my kids are older and more self-sufficient now that I feel like I can sneak a few minutes here and there to escape into a book.

Something else I used to never make time for is exercising. One of those things I always knew I should be doing but could just never motivate myself to have any desire to make a priority in my life. And now here I am attempting to train for a triathlon -- wonders never cease!

Up until recently, I have been listening to music while I do my running, but not long ago I decided to try an audio book instead. I have never been a big fan of audio books (even though we have quite a few because Brian really likes to listen to them while driving). I didn't like them for several reasons: I usually read faster than the pace of an audio book, I like to be able to go back and re-read pieces here and there, and I felt like it was hard to concentrate on the story with so many interruptions from my kids, etc.

But I gave one a try while doing my running and found that I quite enjoyed it. I don't have to worry so much about interruptions from the kids while exercising and concentrating on the story really helps take my mind off my huffing and puffing. And then I discovered as I got into a story more and wanted to keep listening, that I would pop in my earphones while washing dishes or folding laundry and for the most part, it wasn't too hard to follow the story while doing other small tasks around the house.

Another new thing that I'm finally doing is reading chapter books out loud with my kids. I have always read to them at bedtime, but it's always been short picture books that we can read in one sitting. A few months ago, I decided to try reading a chapter book to them and started it for FHE one night, but found that it just didn't fit in with our schedule to read to all four of them at once (and we still haven't read more than a couple of chapters in it).

A week or so ago, I read about a fairly new short chapter book (called The Night Fairy) that sounded like a great read-aloud for my girls. We picked it up from the library and I decided to give it another try. This time, however, I didn't worry so much about McKay being there since the girls all go to bed at the same time and he always goes to bed later (plus, this was a fairy book that I didn't think he would be much interested in). We have one chapter left now and we love it! I've found that a chapter takes about as long as a handful of picture books and the girls just can't wait for the next installment. I had to miss one night this week because I was gone until late and they were so sad. McKay even listened in one night for a bit. I'm excited to continue this with them and look for other fun books. It might be more challenging once school starts and bedtime needs to be earlier and more structured, but we'll see how it goes.

Since I now seem to have 3 books going at once, and a lot of people ask me what I'm reading, I decided to add some little sidebars to my blog showing the current reading and listening selections. I also found a little "widget" from Goodreads (a web site I like to help me keep track of everything I read) to show several of the recent books I've finished for anybody that's interested.

Happy reading!

Off She Goes!

The other night the girls went outside after dinner and I happened to glance out just in time to see Hayley taking off down the sidewalk on her bike with NO training wheels. What? When did this happen?

I knew at least one training wheel had been raised up off the ground a bit, but I had no idea she was that ready for them to come off. (Just goes to show what happens with the baby of the family I suppose.) She told McKay to take them off and there she went like a pro!

4th of July Festivities

We didn't do an awful lot for the 4th of July this year, but found time for some small celebrations.

On Saturday (the 3rd), McKay convinced Brian to buy a combo pack of fireworks from one of the roadside vendors (since we are outside the city limits we can legally have fireworks). It was almost too windy, but we decided it wasn't too bad on the back patio. The kids were SO excited and ooh'd and aah'd. The sparklers were even a huge hit.

Then on Sunday we decided to drive down into Amarillo to see the big fireworks display that the city puts on. The past two years, we have just watched the various fireworks from a distance as we sat in our driveway or on our patio (you can actually see quite a bit from our house!). Brian has wanted to go in closer to see the big display, so we did this year. I have always wanted to try taking pictures of fireworks using a tripod, so I brought my stuff to set up. Some friends from church told us they always go to the parking lot/lawn area of the other church building in town, so we decided to meet up with them there. It was kitty-corner from the south end of the big park where the fireworks were.

Then we sat and sat and waited and waited. We had heard it was supposed to start about 9:30, but it wasn't quite dark then so we thought no big deal. When it got to be almost 10:30 we were really wondering what was going on. Then we started seeing large groups of people walking back from the park across the street. We heard several people say that the fireworks had been canceled due to high winds (we didn't think the wind seemed bad at all). So we finally decided to pack up and leave as well. The kids were very disappointed.

We started driving home and got over to the west side of town when we happened to turn and look back. Lo and behold, there were the fireworks going off! Brian hurried and found a neighborhood to pull into and we parked where we had a decent view of the sky and watched the end of the show from the back of the truck. I didn't get a chance to try out taking any pictures, but there's always next year. So it wasn't quite what we planned, but it turned out okay in the end!

Wyoming Trip, Part 2

As I mentioned in my last post, most of Brian's family were in Wyoming for some of the week we were there. It's been awhile since all 8 siblings have been together! I think we were only missing a handful of the nieces and nephews -- it was a lot of people!

So there was lots of visiting going on!

The highlight of the weekend was the baby blessing of beautiful Scarlett (belonging to Brian's youngest brother Michael).

Here are Michael and Julie with Brian's parents (and of course Scarlett, who was just the sweetest little baby!).

And our family picture after church. There's a picture on somebody's camera of the entire group (or most of it) but I haven't got my hands on it yet.

Several of us did a little hike one evening up Cedar Creek Canyon. I have never been on this particular hike before, and it was really pretty!

The kids were great hikers and even Hannah, who moaned and complained initially about not wanting to go on a hike, decided it wasn't so bad.

A family picture at the overlook area where we stopped to turn around and head back down.

The other big highlight of the week for the kids were getting to see the baby raccoons of their big cousin Kyle. Apparently Kyle killed the mother raccoon and then discovered the two babies which he has adopted for the time being. The kids loved watching them be bottle-fed and getting to hold them!

Hayley has a thing about holding animals by the scruff of their neck (she does this with our cat all the time too).

All in all, it was a great vacation! (If you don't count the LONG drive home, which took us longer than usual because we had to make several stops, hit Denver right at 5:00pm, had Courtney throw up all over the back seat, etc. --- you get the idea.)

But it's always good to be home too!

Wyoming Trip, Part 1

Lots of catching up to do, and lots of pictures to post, so I'll try to keep this simple.

We went up to Wyoming for about a week at the end of June. Our main purpose for going was to visit with Brian's family (all 8 of the siblings were there!) and to be a part of the baby blessing of our newest Humpherys niece, darling Scarlett.

Star Valley is so beautiful and green in the summer! I even managed to get our on a little run a few mornings and enjoyed the cool mountain air.

Our other purpose for going was so Brian could work on building a new entertainment center. Our house had a built-in unit but we got a TV a while ago that was too wide for the allotted space. Brian thought he might try to remodel the current unit, so he pulled it all out and loaded it in the back of out truck and we all squished in the truck for the long drive. Once there, he decided it would be easier to just start a new unit from scratch so he spent a good portion of his time over in his brother's cabinet shop making us another new beautiful piece of furniture.

McKay spent a lot of his time helping Brian in the shop. The girls even would go over for little bits to check out the work.

Here is the finished piece being loaded in the truck.

The rest of us spent our time doing fun things like...

playing on the tree and rope swing in the backyard...

hanging out in the chicken coop (one of the girl's favorite places)...

and the favorite thing inside the chicken coop is throwing chickens up to see how far they fly...

and playing with cousins...

I enjoyed spending a lot of my time reading -- it's nice to be able to sit with a book and not feel too terribly guilty about the housework I'm avoiding.

More to come!