Goodbye Aunt E
Aunt E came for one last visit with me and the entourage before departing to Japan for two years, and we all loved every moment! E even gave me some "me time" and therefore had no competition for the entourage's attention for awhile. It was nice for all of us to have an extra grown up around for swimming lessons, haircuts, shopping, and eating at a real restaurant. Right before she left, the girls insisted she read them their pre-naptime stories and she showed them on our big map where she'll be moving. That night after she left we ate ramen soup and practiced with chopsticks and discussed that it was food from Japan and that Aunt E was probably going to get really good at using chopsticks.

Swimming
Swimming lessons continued this week and ended on Thursday. Monkey and Bug continued to make progress and even let their teacher dunk them without tears! (Goose meanwhile discovered the joys of running around the big reception desk in the middle of the lobby.) We also had three visits to the pool outside of classes. On Monday Aunt E was with us, so we all donned bathingsuits and went straight to our neighborhood pool from swimming lessons. Monkey and Bug took to the water immediately. The grabbed their fish floaties and happily kicked around the pool quite independently despite the fact that it wasn't terribly hot outside and it even started raining. Bug even jumped in the pool with out someone to catch her! Granted, I don't think she expected to go entirely underwater, and she did freak out a bit, but she still wanted to get back in the pool. This pool visit didn't go quite so well for Goose, but I did eventually have her splashing her feet in the pool. Mostly, she just wanted to wrap up in her towel and lounge poolside. Based on our next two pool visits though, this reaction was strictly due to water temperature. She is a little water baby! We went to our friend's apartment complex that has a kiddie pool section (6 inches of water). Goose had a blast splashing around with our friends, and it didn't take much for me to convince her to go swimming with me. She loves jumping in and is completely unfazed by getting facefulls of water every time. I even dunked her a couple of times without her getting upset. Since she has a bathing suit with the floaties built in, I can just hold her hands and let her float, which she thinks is awesome. Since Goose loves the pool, and Monkey and Bug kept up their independence (while still staying pretty close and following all the rules). I think I may even be brave enough to take on the neighborhood pool without another grown up.

Library Day
The summer program continues. The entourage has long since finished the requisite 35 books read to them, but we keep forgetting to take the record of it in to get their prizes. The theme for this week's storytime was elephants, and the craft was a construction paper elephant head with a party blower stuck through for his truck. The elephant heads didn't keep their attention for long, but the party blowers are still getting regular use.

The girls recruited Aunt E to read them books after storytime, so I got to look for books and chat with a friend. We came home with these books:
Too Many Kangaroo Things to Do
Berenstein Bear's Four Seasons
I Will Surprise My Friend
Dinosaurs Dance
The Extraordinary Egg
The Sneetches and Other Stories
While not a library book, we've been reading quite a bit from A Treasury of Fairy Tales, a collection of a couple dozen classic tales wonderfully illustrated. It was a bargain purchase from a consignment store that is going to get lots of use!

Playdate
We had playdate with N and G again this week, but this time we went to their house. Grown ups and kids alike had a fabulous time. The entourage was very excited about N and G's extensive toy train collection. They get along so well, they even know when to go their separate ways and leave each other alone for a bit. At one point the big kids got very quiet and Miss K and I looked to find the three of them had retreated to separate corners of the study, playing with Starfall.com (N), worksheets and crayons (Bug), and a magnadoodle (Monkey). The real excitment of the playdate (not entirely positive) was being enthusiastically greeted at the door by their Newfoundland mix. He didn't jump up or lick them--he was just there and HUGE. The entourage was anxious/upset at first, but I stepped up to pet/distract the dog and the kids and dogs (there was a smaller one at his heels) quickly settled into cheerfully ignoring each other. Except Goose--it didn't take her too long to go from anxious to fascinated, and she started following the dogs around. I'm thrilled the entourage will finally have a chance to really get to know some very large and very well behaved dogs in a friendly environment.

Building
We followed instructions to build a motorcycle with parts from their workbench this week. We don't do this often, but when we do I'm always reminded of what great projects these are. The girls work on colors, shapes, counting, following directions, using the right tool for the job, and practicing fine motor skills and end up with a cool toy to play with and then disassemble. They discovered they had a number of stuffed buddies who were about the right size to ride this.

This is our collection of nature treasures from our walk
around the neighborhood on Saturday.