Some Beach

At the beginning of June a dear friend of mind invited me and the children to the beach for a few short days. We finally purchased a portable DVD player for the van after much deliberation about which one to get. It was a wonderful tool to have-and the best road trip we've ever had...besides the 10 plus bathroom breaks (no joke here-and we only went 3 hours away). We had a lovely beachfront place to stay with ocean access and a fabulous pool for the children. We soaked up as much sun and water we could handle. I was so ready to head home and so so so tired! The great thing about where we stayed is that you can ride around in golf carts with very little traffic passing by. We were able to scout a lot of wildlife and the children ate it up! We saw herons, hermit crabs, alligators a plenty, a deer, snakes and various other birds of which I am not capable of identifying. Thanks so much "I" family for inviting us!

I must mention that this is the family of one of Rowan's classmates for the past 2 years, Hughes. We were also there with Rowan's other buddy Ben. The boys had a blast! This is when Rowan decided he was ready to start learning how to swim on his own since Hughes and Ben could do it a little on their own.

Good thing for us we had already signed up for private swim lessons the very next week! Rowan did awesome and is very confident in the water. He has no trouble going under and holding his breath. He can keep his body upright while kicking and scooping with his arms. He's not very efficient with his breathing yet and tires quickly, but he's really getting the hang of it. We joined a private pool for the summer so we're hoping for lots more practice! Sorry, no pictures yet.

Rowan's 4yr Old Preschool Program

The 4yr old classes at Rowan's school practice practice practice for their end of the year program. They sang about 15 songs such as "On Top of Spaghetti", "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain", etc. The t-shirts they made have the handprints of each child from their class. He now wears it to bed some nights or after getting out of the pool. What a special way to remember 4yr old preschool!

The other picture is of his sweet teacher Mrs. M.K. As most of you know, we had a rough start to the year with her. She has high expectations of her students, but we were delighted with Rowan's immense progress as he matured through the year. Academically he always did great, but learning to sit a little longer and focus a bit more were his areas of improvement. His memory still proves to be one of his strongest assetts. I wish so much I had a memory like his! His friendships were also a big change from last year. After playing on the playground after school almost every day, strong bonds were developed with the boys in his class. They always had so much fun pretending to be rescue heroes and power rangers (which ironically Rowan doesn't even know what Power Rangers really is).

Mother's Day 2008

Catching up here...finally downloaded and edited my pictures from the camera. For Mother's Day this year Rowan's teacher put together a photo album for each mommy in the class of their little guy or gal's schoolyear. Very precious and very time consuming I'm sure. She had asked each child to "donate" a disposable camera at the beginning of the year and now we know why. It melted my heart and made me sad and happy at the same time!