Swimmers

We enrolled in the Michael Phelps swim school at the beginning of March.  It is a 40 minute drive from our house but when I read that the pool was 90 degrees it was an easy sale.  Well to make it better Evan and Sara are alone with a teacher.  The class sizes are usually 4 students per teacher but no one else signed up for the time we did.  So Thursdays are tough I get out of school at 3:20 on a normal day and twice a month at 4:20 ( I will sneak out a bit early) so my mom has the kids fed and in their swimsuits ready to go.  The drive up is long and Sara is good if Evan keeps her occupied but once she gets bored I hear I am carsick. 

So the swim lessons are great they have progressed so quickly with only half hour lessons.  We will have 9 weeks of lessons. The kids have had 3 lessons so far and Evan was attempting to swim using strokes last week.  Sara was successfully floating on her back and stomach

.  They can both swim under water but haven't mastered swimming above water yet.  So at this rate I am confident we will have mastered it by the end of the lessons.  After all of the complaining about the car ride.  The kids smile and laugh the entire time in the pool.  We have learned to take our showers there and make a stop for ice cream on the way home.  Last week I said lets stop for lemon ice.  So I introduced the kids to Anderson's my favorite place for lemon ice.  They instantly fell in love with it and asked to go each week.  After both having lemon ice they asked for something to eat.  By then it was 6:30 so I bought them fries and chicken fingers to share.  They asked if we could come back every week.  Its tough to feed them before and leave by 4:15 and not return home until around 6:30 (we usually eat around 5:00-5:15).  So I think this will be our weekly treat.

I recently pulled up my shopper card information at Wegmans and it allows you to see how much you spend each month/year and it was shocking.  So I have really been trying to cut back on how much I purchase and trying to go to Aldi's, Save-a-lot when time permits. Hopefully I can try to be more diligent with this.  I have been trying to cut back the amount we eat out.  Sometimes when its just the kids and I we do it as part of a day out.  We usually have pizza every 1-2 weeks, the kids sometimes split a happy meal with extra fries, and sometimes I pick up chicken fingers at Wegmans.  Occasionally we go out as a family during the weekends.  Marc and I used to go out every weekend with other couples prior to having kids.  Now that happens 2-3 times a year!

This weekend we helped to host a gift gathering party for the school auction.  6 families hosted the party at the school gym.  We had appetizers, drinks, and desserts and invited 90 families.  The party was a complete flop there were only 30 people who came including those who hosted it.  The auction is held every two years and I think the parties were not well organized and many parents were invited to multiple parties.  So I created a bow basket as a donation with school uniform bows and holiday bows and I figure the costs of the party were my other donation.  We also will be attending the auction and that is not inexpensive.