The kids both took swim lessons at the New Haven Pool in July. Dane was in the Get Acquainted Class, and Ava was in Level 1. They both had fun swimming, but it was COLD!! That's a really strange thing to say in July, I know, but they even cancelled class one night because it was so cool.
All ready to go with beach towels and flip flops:
Ava did GREAT! She loves the water, and did everything her teachers asked her to do. She passed Level 1 with flying colors!
Dane, well, he was a different story. It took some convincing to get him in the water at all the first night. Once he worked up the courage to get into the baby pool, he decided the water was a lot of fun. After some getting used to, he would even jump into the pool holding onto my hands. However, he did not like it at all when I tried to help him float or "swim" around in the water. He kept screaming "Baby pool! Baby pool!"Here are some pics of Dane post-lesson. His were right before Ava's, and I don't have any of him in the water because I was in the water with him.
Little Miss Fish waiting in line for her turn on the water slide - it was her favorite part. She even went off the diving board into the deep end a few times later in the week. Can you tell all the kids are shivering? This was even one of the "warm" nights!
Splashdown!
Brrrrrr, look at those purple lips!
Ava picked the icing colors, and I helped her pipe it on. She put the sprinkles on all by herself. Her philosophy is the more sprinkles, the better!
Dane supervised the cake decorating project - right up until he fell over the back of the chair. Fortunately, he's partially made of rubber, and bounced right back!
After the sprinkles, Ava added as many plastic picks as possible for the finishing touch. In her eyes, Daddy is a guiter-playing, basketball-shooting, handyman lucky star of a dad!
Dane was happy to clean up the extra icing:
We delivered the cake to Daddy at his farm on Father's Day. But before the kids presented him with his cake, they helped him water the heifers that live in the pasture next to his house.
Moo! The heifers were grateful for the drink:
Daddy thought the cake looked great, Ava was very proud of herself, and Dane couldn't wait to dig in (of course). We shared it with the Oelrichs side of the family after dinner that day, and everyone thought it tasted great, too!
Dane was afraid to go in the bounce house, so I entertained him (and several other kids) by blowing bubbles for them to chase:
Ava, bouncing away!
Ava did a superb job of supervising from her seat on the Gator. Like the purple butterfly mud boots? She puts the "girl" in "farmgirl".
Dane mixed up some calf feed . . .
. . . and tried to feed some to Little Jake:
Clearly, Little Jake wasn't interested.
. . . and go visit the "mommy cows".
Unlike the 
Very curious. 
Mmmmm, yummmy!
Licking every last drop from the bowl:
Dane is a different story. He seemed to love ice cream a year ago:
But now, he wants nothing to do with it! He pushes the bowl or spoon away and says, "Don't like it!" Once he even cried when he accidentally ate a spoonful of ice cream -- I guess he was expecting something else.
Here's a couple of videos so you can get the full effect. We even tried to trick him into thinking the ice cream was chocolate pudding (which he does like), but he's too smart for that!
One evening, the kids decided it was so nice that they wanted to sleep outside, too. I walked out to find this on the patio:
