Swim Lessons

Here's a picture of my awesome swim teacher and I. I started the summer in my life jacket refusing to go in the deep end or anywhere near the diving board.

Now I don't need a life jacket at all and I'll even jump in off the side of the pool! Stay tuned. I can't wait to see where I end up thanks to Courtnee's help.

Coley is taking lessons at the high school. He's doing really well too!

UPDATE:  I am now swimming underwater! Getting better and better.

and Coley is diving like a pro. He's working on a flip next!

Surprise!

Mom told me she had a surprise for me today. She assured me that no matter how hard I tried, I would NEVER guess what it was. She was right! It was my old buddy Aaron!

Any kid knows that grown ups (especially Moms) talk a lot and a lot and it's really super boring to listen to them. Well I guess today I should be grateful that Mommy talks to other Moms so much because she made sure to keep in touch with Mrs. Spaulding so I could see my old buddy again. We sure did enjoy our day together.

Clayton came too! He is getting sooooo big!
Thanks for stopping in. It was so great to see you again.

Ding Dong What?!

Around here you never know what you'll find when you answer the door.

Ding dong, WHAT is THAT?!

More Fun With Family

We had big plans to spend the day on Saturday swimming in Aunty Marianne's pool and celebrating Coley's bday. First, I broke his new plasma globe in the morning, then I almost broke his face after only an hour at the pool! Grandma insisted he go to Urgent Care so off they went. Mom and Coley spent 3+ hours wet and cold in the waiting room while I sat and colored and thought about my really bad decisions. I'm so sorry Coley!

We had more fun later on though! Uncle Scott came over and we had Coley's first bday cake and I got steak and we all played in the back yard. I'm lucky my brother is the forgiving sort!

Chicago Trip

Grandma said it was time for my trip to Chicago with her and Bugga! Mom and Coley came along too. We got up at the crack of dawn and hopped on a train. Cool!

Well... cool for about 30 minutes of the 3 hour trip and cool if you didn't go in the nasty bathrooms! We may have gotten a little stir crazy.

No worries though! We were at the Shedd Aquarium in no time and Mom got me this cool hat.

These pictures are out of order, but Mom asked us to stop for a picture with Grandma. Of course, I wasn't all that excited about the idea...

Patience was a little low.

Mom may have issued a few threats.

So I issued a threat of my own! That REALLY didn't go over well.



The aquarium was full of reallly weird looking animals.



Or this big chomper?

Really ugly. Sorry man.

This guy took the cake. He was the weirdest looking creature we'd ever seen. Wow. Just... wow. God has a fantastic imagination!

We spent a lot of time at the sting ray pool. Some of us were more aggressive in our approach than others. Bet you can guess how nice I smelled the rest of the day.

We spent a full day at the aquarium, stopped to watch some skate boarders, pretended to blow up the city at the train station, hopped back on the train and headed home.
Thank you for taking us Grandma and sorry you didn't feel good Bugga. We had a great day!

When You Get Invited to the Lake...

Just when we were getting ready to execute against the Father's Day plan, we got an invite to the lake! Mom said "when you get an invitation to the lake, you don't think twice. You stop what you're doing and you GO to the lake!" It's an important life lesson I guess...

So off we went with our awesome neighbors. We wasted no time hopping on the tube with Chloe.

It was mostly fun and just a little bit terrifying!

More terrifying when it was just Chloe and I! Her Dad was a lot nicer when B was on!

We did stop for a bit to swim. Mom fell off the boat and banged up her shin pretty bad, but bruised her ego even more because a LOT of people saw and Dad says she looked really funny.

Back on the tube afterwards and this time Bryce brought along two beauties! Courtnee made sure her star swimming pupil was safe and sound and her star pupil was in HEAVEN.

Last up was the Vandygriff family. Dad was not so fond of the craziness, but Mom was laughing hysterically the whole time. Some people are just lake/water people.

It should be noted that B would not pee in the lake when he was actually in the lake. He insisted on getting out of the water and peeing off the end of the boat. For whatever reason, this was way less embarassing than peeing in the water. Whatevs B...

 

Hey!  B!  What're you doing up there with Courtnee?! Maybe someone has a bit of a crush on his swim teacher?
We sure did have an excellent day. It wasn't at all what we planned; it was MUCH better.
Hope you had a great Father's Day, Dad!

Happy Father's Day Big Guy

Father's Day is here! We got a lot of great loot for Dad this year. It was pretty heavy loot!

Mom rammed it all in a Rowan proof watering can. Sorry Row!

We even picked out a card with a musical beer koozie for him.



Super classy!

Coley got him a mega battery cell phone charger because 1. His phone is ALWAYS dead and 2. He is forever losing chargers. Maybe this beast will stick around?

Speaking of beasts... This guy really loves his Dad. We're all pretty big fans of the guy!

So we planned out the entire day to make sure he felt special. No minute un accounted for. Let's do this Dad!

Celebration!

Later that day, we went right back to the ballpark to celebrate! We got to go in bounce houses, run on slip n' slides and dunk people in the dunk tank. What a fun day with our friends The Nelsons and The Smiths! Who knows what Mom is doing here...  You look really uncomfortable, Ma.

I had a good time just horsing around with my teammates one last time.

Gav took home two massive trophies.

and I did too! One for regular season championship and one for tournament championship.

It's pretty nice to have all this hardware!

Thanks for another great season coach!

Champions

We went undefeated in the regular season, but tournament time is SERIOUS. This is why I slid into home so hard that my entire head was full of sand. Pretty sure there's some in my brain! No pain, no gain.

Thanks to the private lessons Grandma paid for, my hitting was 100 times better!

Going... going... GONE to the outfield! I got a triple off this one. I also hit a home run, but we scored out 5th run of the inning just as I was getting to third base and the coach didn't let me run it out :(

No matter! We won the tournament too!

Two years in a row as a Marlin under Coach Capps.

A really great team too. The Browns and The Silers (our neighbors) came to cheer me on. I'm a pretty lucky guy.

and of course, my good luck charm was there. She got up at 4am to make it to my game in time
Thanks for always believing in me Grandma!

Clickton

The good thing about doing all kinds of homework and chores is that Mom pays us! This week I spent my $5 on an awesome old typewriter that I named "Clickton."

Of course Mom spent about $20 more dollars on oil and ink for Clickton, but that's not the point.... Money is no object when a man settles in to write his life story!