Swimming

This week Sofia started with the Raiders Prep Clinic which is the group that is getting ready to move onto the swim team.  Technically it is a step backwards for her but she doesn't seem to notice and had a great time on Tuesday. It is a much bigger group than she is used to and a lot more kids her age.  I think all the change to the new team makes the fit fine for her.  She is still swimming laps and building endurance.  I'm not in any rush for her to move up to the actual swim team either since this current schedule works well for us.

With Sofia's increasing ability and endurance with swimming I decided it was time to get myself in the pool.  I want to be able to keep up with my seven year old!  I know that if she keeps swimming she will at some point surpass my abilities but I want to keep that as far away as possible. :)  I get the added bonus of some good exercise and hopefully I will do my first triathlon next summer.  I'm already swimming 1/4 mile (18 lengths of the pool) without stopping.  I just need to be able to do it faster and without as much effort.It is fun getting in the pool but since it only takes 15 minutes to swim 1/4 mile I'm not in the pool for that long.  It will be nice going a longer distance so I feel like I have spent some good time in the pool to make the changing/showering time worth it.

American Girl Birthday party

Sofia went to her first American Girl birthday party yesterday for her friend Emma.  She has not expressed a ton of interest in American Girl dolls but my friend warned me that that would all change after the party.  As we walked in to the store (there is a cafe upstairs) I was asking Sofia is she wanted one of the dolls and she said not really I just like dressing them up.  I dropped her at the party and left to spend an hour and a half browsing the mall.  When I arrived back and picked her up she announced that she "really, really really" wants Kanani.  We left he party and Sofia and her friend Kate browsed the American Girl shop for probably a good thirty minutes.  I didn't mind that she was doing it since it gave her some more time with her friend and since she had a friend to browse with it meant I could stand around talking with Kate's mom, Kara.  As we drove home in the car Sofia looked at the American Girl catalog.  She announced that she really wanted Julie's bed.  I asked her how much it was since I want her to be aware that American Girl doll and their things are very expensive.  I guess she gets that though because she said, "Ummmmmm...I don't want to tell you."  She did eventually tell me it was $125 and we talked about that she can ask for it for Christmas but if she is asking for expensive things like American Girl dolls, accessories and new skis that she may get fewer packages since Santa can't spend all his money on one person.  She seemed OK with that.  I guess she is growing up yet still my baby who wants to play with dolls!

Good Bye Envious Swimming

When we moved back to the States I started the girls at Envious Swimming.  It is a great program offered in Warwick that has learn to swim programs straight through swim team so the kids can grow within the program.  The girls loved taking lessons there.  They loved their teachers and have really improved their swimming.  Sofia moved up onto the swim team and is doing amazing.  I sat down one day though and started doing the math.  I realized that I was putting one hundred miles a week on my car to bring the kids to swimming...about 5,000 miles a year!  Add the price of gas onto that and the fact that we drive an hour there and an hour home for 30 minutes of swimming for Ali and 45 minutes of swimming for Sofia.  It just was not worth it especially since Sofia really wanted to start swimming more than once a week.  I started looking around us for swim teams that also had learn to swim programs since Ali is not ready for swim team.  I spoke with Marshall who is the head coach at Envious to get his take on the different options.  We settled on the Westboro Tennis and Swim club which I will write about in a separate post.  The kids had their last practice with Envious on October 28th.  They were very sad to leave.  Hopefully we will have a chance over the course of the year to pop in to Envious to swim with the team since the kids would really enjoy that.  I made sure I snapped a couple pics before we left.  Here is Sofia with Marshall and a video of Ali diving with Dori.

Deer

We have deer that come to our yard.  We know they come because they are eating some of our bushes and most recently we know because they are kind enough to use our backyard as their personal toilet.  Apparently we will have to train the deer as we have trained Watson which is to only poop or pee in the woods!  I also think if they are going to eat my bushes and poop in my yard they should be kind enough to stop by when we can see them.  It is only fair!  I was finally rewarded with seeing the deer the other day.  I was sitting at the kitchen table and Watson was in the sun room.  He started barking like crazy.  I assume it was just a squirrel but he wouldn't stop barking so I got up to check to make sure it wasn't a coyote coming back into our yard.  I couldn't believe it when I got into the sun room and sure enough there were two deer standing at the edge of the woods.  I was surprised they hadn't run away with all Watson's barking and then with my movement walking into the sun room.  I turned around and called the girls in to see the deer.  Again even with the movement the deer stayed where they were.  I decided to go get my camera so I left eh sun room went upstairs to get my camera and change my lens and then come back to the sun room and the deer were still there.  They are clearly not shy of humans! I was able to snap a few shots before they wandered off.  We will be putting deer fencing up soon so that they won't be coming into our yard but I'm glad I got to see them at least once.

Freak Snow Storm

I can't believe we had a Nor'easter in October!  For those of you reading this who are not from the area a Nor'easter is basically a really bad storm.  You can read more on it HERE.  The problem with having a nor'easter in October is that all of the leaves are still on the trees.  The heavy snow sticks to all the leaves which become to heavy for the tree which then breaks limbs or completely falls over.  We watched the weather forecasts and we seem to be right on the line between the 4-8 inch band and the 8-12 inch band.  In the end I would say we got about 5-6 inches.  Throughout the evening Jason and I would go out and shakes the snow from the smaller trees/shrubs in our front yard in hopes of saving them.  By 11:30PM we went out for one last shake of the tree and to shovel the driveway.  The driveway was a giant pile of slush so we wanted to get it cleared before the temperatures dropped and we had 5 inches of ice.  We were fortunate in that we hadn't lost power all night when many people around the state had lost power.  We went to bed hoping for the best.  We woke up in the morning and still had power which was a big relief.  We had lost it at some point in the night since our clocks were flashing but that was easy to deal with.  We looked outside and despite being October and having snow on the ground it was beautiful.  The sun was shining and glistening off the snow.  We had breakfast and then headed out to tend to the yard and survey any damage.  We shoveled the driveway and shook the trees clear of snow.  Two trees had large branches snap but not enough to ruin the look of the tree.  One semi-big tree snapped its branches in two near the bottom so that had to be cut down but we didn't do it that day.  After clearing the driveway and shaking the trees we decided it would be better to enjoy the snow than to try to do any real clean up.  We got the sleds out and made two tracks down the hill in our backyard and the kids had a blast.  Jason and the girls had a snowball flight.     
Sofia was ready and had built a little snow wall to hide behind. While the snowstorm caused quite a bit of damage around town and around the State, we came through it relatively unharmed and were able to enjoy the fun of having our first snowstorm of the season.  The was enough damage around town though that the girls did not have school on Monday.  We will have to hope this is not a trend otherwise the girls will be in school until July.

Pumpkin Carving

While pumpkins seem to hit the shelves at the end of August I refused to purchase one until at least October.  I did decorate the house with fall items by mid September but pumpkins really mean Halloween to me.  Also I knew as soon as we bought pumpkins the kids would want to carve them and once a pumpkin is carved it does not last very long.  We waited until about a week before Halloween and went and bought our pumpkins from Harvey's Farm.  We all like going to Harvey's.  It is close to us and it is an organic farm and the farmer and his daughter are very nice people.  We bought to nice big pumpkins.      The girls decided how they wanted to carve their pumpkins.  Ali chose a design out of one of the pumpkin carving books but Sofia designed hers all by herself.  She got a piece of paper and drew what she wanted he jack-o-lantern to look like.  We taped it to the pumpkin and the cut it out.  I did the cutting but Sofia pushed all the pieces out of the pumpkin and she also sorted out her seeds from all the inside junk.  Jason cut Ali's pumpkin out but she also did the same as Sofia and sat there and separated all the seeds out of her pumpkin.  They were both happy with their end products.

Blogging slacker

I have been a blogging slacker.  For those who read the blog I apologize.  Life seems to by going by at high speed and before I realize it another week has gone by and I haven't blogged.  I will try to be better at writing regularly so you can keep up with our lives.