Lydia Swimming

 

I wish a had a video that captured Lydia's first time in the pool by herself with only floaties on her arms. She was trilled and wanted to keep scooting around the pool with her little walking motion all night. We had tried using the floaties before, and she wasn't really thrilled. But I took her to the pool last night and within a couple of minutes I toughened her up. She finally trusted me enough to let go of her and let her bob up and down in the water. Then she said "woe!" about 50 times in a row, getting more and more excitement in her voice with each one.

Before long Lydia was having a blast in the pool but still wasn't comfortable to move her arms much or put her legs back to do some real kicking. As a consequence I had to wait 10 minutes when she insisted on swimming across the pool one last time before getting out. But she's doing real well. She can pull herself out at the edge of the pool. And I had a great time watching her face as she squeezed her lips together the whole time to make a water-tight seal since the floaties barely held her face out of the water.

Brief update

Paul and I were just discussing Seattle weather. It's been rather cold here, for summer that is. I can only remember a hand full of days in the last month, since we've been in Seattle, that the temperature outside went above 80 degrees. People say that this year is unusual and I hope that's true.

Other than the weather we've been loving it here. Seeing all the lush greenery makes me feel at home. We've been downtown Seattle a couple of times for family outings. Last one was past Saturday. We visited the area adjacent to the Space needle, splashed in the nearby fountain, enjoyed a few rides, and stopped by the Children's museum. Too bad we forgot our camera. Some memories would just have to live on only in our hearts.

I have to say that we do miss California. There are days when I think of all the things I will do when I go back, specially on those days when it rains here. Lydia loves telling people where we are from and she says it proudly. We miss our friends and wonder what fun things we are missing out on this summer. Also, we are sad that some of our friends like White, Funks and Carter's are leaving our Stanford community, but we continuously think of them and remember the fun times we've had.

Paul is really busy working and trying to finish up some papers that he worked on last school year. I am back to exercising and painting which makes me very happy. Lydia is mastering the art of potty going and Tyler is starting to say a few words like "baa" for "ball" and "tis" for "this". Kids are getting cuter by the day, but they also keep us on our toes. All in all, life is good!

Moving and Traveling

This past month was like a whirlwind. We spent some time in Portland with Paul's family, then moved to Seattle. After a week we were about to switch to another apartment when our plans have been canceled the day of the move and put off for another week. That weekend we had some family in town. A few days later we ALMOST moved again after which we decided to just forget about that whole idea and stay in our 2 bedroom apartment. A weekend trip to Portland followed all that moving commotion.

Now we are in Detroit for a week and a half visiting with Paul's brother and his family. We've had a fun 4th of July going to the ward pot luck and lighting our own fireworks. The next day we've spent on Lake Eerie, at the beach. The water was so warm, which is an upgrade for us since I never feel like getting in the freezing water in the bay area. Now, Paul is in Canada at a conference while I enjoy Summer's and Matthew's company. Lydia loves playing with her cousins Russle and Natalie. The play with trains, dress ups and Tyler. He is such a hit with those kids. Russle loves to run away and Tyler loves to chase him. Yesterday, our almost-one-year-old ended up in a kid's grocery cart and the older kids took terns pushing him around the house. It seemed like all had tremendous fun!

The house is in potty train mode and we had had much success. The girls go to the potty several times a day, persuaded by candy, of course. There are some struggles in that department, but when days like today happen ( Lydia was out on the town all day with us and have not had an accident once), I just forget about the bad and hope for the best in the future.

Summer and I have gone walking early in the mornings, took the kids to the library and shopping at the Mall, visited Greenfield Village ( which is one of the coolest places I've been to) and gone to Matthew's baseball game. This has proven to be a great vacations, even when I do wish that Paul could be here to enjoy it with us.