six for saturday

1. Emma is participating on the Pleasant Grove swim team this summer. Dave and I both swam on swim team as children and also in high school. We both were excited to have one of our kids have that experience. Emma very nearly let her fear get the better of her and almost gave up the experience. At try-outs, after one length of the pool in warm-ups, she decided it was too hard. Fortunately, her Aunt Katie is one of the coaches and she agreed to let Emma have one more shot a few days later. Emma, along with her friend, both were able to get on the team. Since then, Emma has shown remarkable improvement. She has discovered that she likes freestyle and breaststroke best. While it isn't always fun to have the whole of Saturday morning occupied with a swim meet, I think she is rather enjoying the whole thing.


2. With June being unseasonably cold and rainy, we hardly used our pool pass. The temperatures began to heat up in July just in time for swimming lessons. I managed to get Emma, Slade and Nathan all in classes at the same time. Well, I thought I had managed that feat but the first day of lessons, I discovered that Slade was put in the following class time. Oh well. We went to the pool M-Th from 4 to 6ish for two weeks. I've decided these swimming lessons are a total waste of time and money. Of course, that opinion is a result of very limited observation since I spent most of the time at the pool trying to keep track of Sawyer while attempting to keep Anne out of the sun.

photo from Jill

3. Anne is four months old. Her recent accomplishments are rolling over, holding onto toys, and standing up in the exersaucer. She is a fantastic sleeper at night but not much of a napper. I'm totally loving having a little girl in the house again. Girl clothes are way more fun!


4. Dave and I are both trying to eat healthier, exercise more and lose some weight (well actually a lot in my case). Dave as been running in training for the Las Vegas Ragnar relay which he will be doing with his siblings. I have chosen Body for Life as my method of torture. I used this program very successfully after I had Emma but obviously not since then. This week I managed to get up early and work out every day. This is huge for me. I don't do early. As for the diet...let's just say that I ate better. My muscles have been extremely sore all week. Now that its Saturday, I can finally walk and bend a little more easily. Losing weight is a completely daunting task. I am going to have to dig deep for some motivation. I've got a long way to go.

5. My neighbor introduced me to the food storage seminar of Wendy DeWitt. I have been fully converted. In my efforts to follow her system, I have purchased a solar oven, a Food Saver, and a pressure canner. My sister in law Heather came over to help me get past my fear of pressure canning last week. Since then, I have successfully canned 48 pounds of meat. Only 317 to go. The solar oven arrived this week. I'll have to let you know how it goes when I finally get around to trying it out.

6. Dr. Lorscheider is our dentist and he is totally awesome. Not only is he nice and has an office just down the street but each year he does a patient appreciation day. Last year, we went to Jump On It. This year he bought out two theaters for the latest Harry Potter movie. We are totally too cheap to go see movies before they hit the dollar theaters so it was fun to go see Harry in its first week.