Wahoos!

Ahh...the neighborhood swim team. Actually a pretty foreign concept to me. Whit is somewhat more familiar with neighborhood swimming pools and teams. Sure, I took swim lessons growing up, but we didn't have a pool in my neighborhood. In California, more people have backyard pools. I think that the backyard pool is less common out here because of the winter situation. It would probably have to be drained?

So, since I'm now becoming more familiar with the neighborhood pool concept, I've learned a few things. First of all, I now know what adult swim is. I'm not talking about a class at the rec center. It happens during a designated time every hour at the neighborhood pools (apparently also the country club pools). All kids have to get out of the pool and let the adults swim. Secondly, I've learned that neighborhood swim teams are the big thing. It seems like almost everyone joins it. So, of course I want Ella to be on the team.

The great thing about the swim team is that it's such a social part of the neighborhood's summer. There's practice every day. Parents have to volunteer at meets, there are crazy long Saturday meets, and there are also nighttime adult parties. I think it'll be a great way to meet other people in our neighborhood.

Ella is going to be trying out for the junior swim team, aka the Minnows. The main Willow Creek team is known as the Wahoos. Her tryout date is set for mid-May. In anticipation for the try-outs, I've enrolled her in a swim "crash course" at our local rec center. She's actually been doing pretty well. She passed levels one and two and is repeating level two because level three was full. Apparently I'm not the only one with the "crash course" idea. In order to be a Minnow she's supposed to be able to independently swim half of the length of our neighborhood pool. We'll see how it goes. There are some crash course pics below.

Barbell swim with Ms Krista



Back floating. She can actually do this on her own now. She loves it.




Waiting with classmates



Playing the game "Mr Shark"-she's one of the sharks



She's the one underwater here.

Yard Work

Although we love the idea of owning a yard, it's a lot of work. Fortunately in Colorado the yard is dormant for most of the late fall, winter, and very early spring. Well, we're starting to see signs of spring and growth on the yard, so we're going to have to get back out there again.

Here's the bad thing. Our neighbor is pretty yard crazy. He's unemployed and works on his yard for at least 2 hours each day (that's in fall and winter with no snow) and probably 4 hours in summer. Which means that his yard is magazine beautiful and that our yard looks like crap comparatively. Although our yard is in pretty decent shape, it will never look anything like his. I should take a picture of his yard, to show what we're up against.

Inspired by their commercials and feeling a little yard competitive, we just got back from the Home Depot armed with fertilizer, bulbs, geraniums, and a shovel. We're going to see what we can do. Whit and I are pretty sure that our neighbors secretly laugh at us because we truly don't know what we're doing. We feel a little silly asking our beautiful yard neighbor the basics, so we don't. That means that we end up doing a lot of guessing. It's all part of our learning process!

Whit has a solution for all unknown sprouts in the yard...don't know what it is-mow it down!

Disneyland 2011

A few photos from our recent day at Disneyland. As per usual, I'm not in any of them. It's mostly Ella with Grandpa and Grandma.

In line for Thunder Mountain. It was her first time.


Taking a turn


On Dumbo with Grandma


Small World


Although she didn't want to ride it, she's just outside of Mr. Toad's.


Jungle Book


Rockets


"Driving" on Autopia


Submarines-it was my first time on this ride, too.

Lessons Learned

My trip to CA was filled with very mixed emotions for me. I was definitely excited to see my family and friends who I hadn't seen in 9 months. However, I've never really missed CA. I don't sit around thinking about it much. Well, I do think about it, but it's in a "we could have never done/afforded/enjoyed/etc. this in LA" kind of way. I will admit that in the midst of the "Arctic freeze" I did think a little bit about the weather in LA. That's practically the extent of it.

Was I ready to go back to visit? I don't know...But here were some of the highlights:

*Seeing old friends. That was much needed. No one really knows you like an old friend.

*Being able to take Ella back to Disneyland. She is a thrill seeker and she's also surprisingly tall enough to ride every ride (except Indiana Jones). And she definitely wanted to ride everything, including Space Mountain. I was very hesitant to let her ride Space, but she did okay on it. By the way, going to Disneyland with a hangover is completely unrecommended.

*Shopping with my mom. I love girl shopping, especially with my mom (and not just because she pays, although that is nice).

*Eating at all of the restaurants that we don't have out here. And by that I mainly mean In-N-Out. I rarely eat fast food. In fact, Ella begs me to take her to McDonald's (I'm a mean mommy apparently). There's something about In-N-Out that I crave. I called Whit while I was in the drive-thru to rub it in his face. He loves me.

Of course there were other things that we did, but we really ended up doing a lot of shopping. Also, I didn't have a car to get around with so I had to do whatever my mom wanted to do (which turned out to be shopping). And I had to work for 2 mornings on a homework assignment for that wonderful Gifted Ed class that I very willingly signed up for.

It was a little weird being back. I thought that I would be so happy to be back home, but I really missed Whit and my house and my little routines. I think that is a big indication that I feel at home here in Denver. So that's a good thing. I think that the big lesson that I learned is that I'm in a good place where I am and I'm so completely glad to be here.

I'll try to post some pics of Ella at Disneyland soon.