Oh What Do We Do in the Summertime?

We stay as wet as possible!

We started the summer off with a fun camp out with my family--but Spencer was the oldest male there! My Grandma came too and took us on a beautiful hike by the Santa Ana River. 

The kids played in the stream and we drew, painted, took pictures, and read--very relaxing, which was good since the rest of the time all the setting up of tents, cooking, starting fires, jumping my truck's battery, packing, etc...was all on us women!

I love Wicked The Musical, but I ALMOST got sick of hearing the songs because these two sang the entire time. They were so cute, they came up with actions, memorized the best songs, and did a show for us by the campfire. 

We had to drive to Big Bear lake so my battery would recharge, but we spent a nice afternoon there, including throwing rocks into the lake!

This toy was good for one time, then it broke, but the kids sure had fun with it!

Gotta love the slip-n-slide!

I don't love driving to the beach, but I love being there. I kept saying to myself that there was no way we would go to the beach every week, but there were only a few weeks that we didn't make it to the beach this summer! Nathan finally LOVES the water, yea!

Brooklyn learned how to boogie board this summer. My aunt Sylvia told her a story of a cousin (can't remember who? was it Kyndra? ) that didn't understand what it meant to keep their nose up. But Brooklyn didn't quite get the funny part of the story, because here she is holding her nose up (the board's nose is doing okay too!)

Nathan even tried the boogie board!

Riley and Hunter being cute cousins

Must-go-in-the-water, even when it is cold!

Brooklyn swam on the summer swim team again this year. It is so fun to do activities with friends!

Brooklyn liked doing freestyle the best.

This is actually during a race. She saw me taking a picture, so what did she do? Smiled of course!

My favorite race to watch is the IM, but I know it tires her out so much!

Cousins: The Brooklyns

These kids love to hang out and play and talk during meets when they aren't swimming!

The boys took swim lessons this summer and are officially both swimming now! Before lessons started, every time we went swimming I gave Nathan a swim lesson, because last year they were in the same class together and didn't get very far. I was determined to get them into different classes, and it helped so much! Nathan got over his fear of the deep end and now I don't have to watch him every second while we are swimming!

Hunter learned how to swim! This was very exciting. He was sad not to be in the same class with his brother,  but he managed to have fun! He does really well with short distances, breathes pretty well, and gets better every time we go swimming!

The boys would not jump off the diving board during the two weeks of lessons. Then the day before the last day, Hunter said, I'm going to jump off the diving board tomorrow. So Nathan said, Okay fine I will too. They both loved it and wished they could do it again!

My two super heroes!