Grady the Fish

My mom met Amy's mom when she took me to my first swim lesson when I was around 18 months old. That chance meeting ended up turning into a lifelong best friend, so it's always been in the back of my mind when thinking about taking Grady to his first swim lesson.
We are lucky in that Grady's since Grady's day care is at the YWCA, we get to take him to swim lessons for free...even better! We had our first lesson 3 weeks ago. - it's on Tuesday evenings at 5:45, so I go directly from work to pick him up and get us both changed. That is a task in itself! Anyway, I wasn't sure what to expect; he has always loved the water but is not a fan of laying on his back.
There are 3 other kids in his class, which is the "baby 1" class for everyone under the age of 2. Two of the kids are babies, around 8 months old and the other one is in Grady's daycare class - Nolan. Nolan has been taking swim lessons pretty much straight since he was 6 months old, so he's an old pro... Can put his face in the water and everything! The 2 babies didn't know WHAT was going on. So it was kind of hard to judge Grady's reaction. The instructor lead us through some games to get them used to splashing around and "dig, dig, digging" (doggie paddle) back to the side of the pool. Grady generally went along with it, except for the parts where we get them to float on their back, just as I had expected!
Grady's favorite part is right at the end. They have a big plastic slide the instructor puts up to the side of the pool, and she slides the kids down it and we catch them in the water. Grady LOVES it and wants to do it over and over! That's really the only time I can get him to do his "dig dig dig", so he can get another turn at the slide.
The last couple weeks have been a bit better, and especially since I have been getting there soon enough to get him a snack and let it settle before we swim. He acts like he is starving when I pick him up!

-Jessica

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

March 2012

Of course the most exciting part about March was the annual trip to Ireland, West Virginia to go Irish Road Bowling with friends and family!  It started out with the long drive north and we arrived late on a Thursday night.  First stop after visiting with Grandma and Pop Pop Hunter?  To see Matt, Carrie, and West!

Visiting West is always fun and they even got to share some sandwiches!

Jessica and I got to team up with Matt and Carrie for road bowling while the kids were with the grandparents but we always do our best to make sure they get to hang. 

 A trip home also means the we are going to get to see the other big guy that is pretty much family.  So next stop was to see Amy, Andy, and Owen!  Jessica and Amy always love to visit and this is a great example of what they do... catch up!

Alright the next step was get out to the cabin at Stonewall Jackson Lake and meet up with the rest of the group.  Time to hang out with Jana, Porkchop, and a whole lot of Ashley's! 

Ok, this photo was actually AFTER road bowling but they all looked so good and showed up at about this point in the story that I figured it made sense to add this one here.

Next step was a tradition like... well like a lot of things.  We went to dinner at C.J. Maggies.  It was definitely a fun bunch including these guys... and these guys!

Grady and Gavin (the 4th big guy!) got to hang at the cabin after dinner and boy oh boy did they just chill out!  They share the same birthday only one year apart exactly.

Next up was road bowling!  Here are some photos:

Grady got to spend this night with Grandma and Pop Pop Hunter and unfortunately I don't have any photos of that but here is one of Grady walking the old man Buddy.

 We headed home safely the next day after a wonderful weekend with family and friends.  Of course we still feel bad with how long Grady kept Grandma up that night!

February

Whoops!  We got lazy again!  Here are some updates to what we did in February.  March will be very soon to follow.

February started with a trip to visit Grandma and Grandpa L in Buckhannon, WV.  Grandma and Pop Pop H were at the beach so they didn't make any of these pictures.

It has been a very warm winter and of course we had to drive almost seven hours north to get our first taste of the snow!  It made the drive up a little more difficult but was a good trip and we made it safe.  As you can see once we got there it really started to come down and we enjoyed a nice later winter wonderland.


Grandpa L and Dad got to go to the WVU vs. Louisville basketball game thanks to Aunt Becky and Uncle Keith.  Unfortunately WVU lost but we enjoyed the trip and the experience.  While we were at the game Grady and Owen got to visit.

Grady also got to meet Grandma and Grandpa's new kitty, Smokey.

It was a pretty laid back trip but we got a lot accomplished!

For the rest of the month we were in Asheville and here are some pictures to prove how much fun we had!