Swimming lessons

Brett has been waiting ever since Larson was born to get into the pool with him for lessons and we finally signed him up! It's at a community pool and the kids range in age from about 12 months to almost 3 years. The idea of the class is to just have fun in the water with your parent and get comfortable doing things like getting your face wet and jumping off the side. There's a lot of singing, too (Larson really likes the Hokey Pokey one). Per typical fashion for our child, he spends the first 20 minutes of the 30 minute class getting warmed up for the activity...but

afterward he gets to spend extra time in the wading/kiddie area adjacent to the swim lanes which he totally digs -- especially when the toy du jour is inflatable jet planes that he can tote around, what more could a toddler want? Here are some pictures from last week:

Thinking about getting in

Collecting all the green toys from the basket

Not entirely sure what to do with the watering can...

"Swimming" to the green toys!

Got 'em!

Happy 2008!

Happy New Year! I've got some photos to share from our December trip to Florida. It was a family gathering for Larson's birthday, baptism & pre-Christmas celebration. We got off to a wee bit of a rocky start with our connection in Chicago (you would think that after living there for 7 years we would have realized that flying through O'Hare was a bad idea...). Unfortunately, due to freezing rain, we sat on the plane bound for Florida for almost 4 hours before they decided that the flight would, in fact, be cancelled. So we got some extra bonding time on the floor of O'Hare for 5 hours until the next morning flight (complete with q15 min cycling security messages on the overhead -- didn't notice how incredibly loud those were until I was trying to sleep :) Larson weathered all of this remarkably well and the next morning was just as excited to get on another "big airplane" yet again. Every time anyone made an announcement on the plane, Larson would excitedly shout "It's the PILOT!!!".

We had a DQ ice cream cake for Larson's birthday, which I think the grown ups liked more than he did (not enough frosting for a 2 year old!). Unfortunately, the day after his birthday, he got sick for the second time in three months with the pukes. Gastro is even less fun when you are not at your own house! It was a bummer for the rest of the trip, but we still had a good time, all things considered. Fortunately, he seemed to recover right about the time that we had to get back on the plane for the long trip home (thank God!) And despite all this, he has been constantly talking about airplanes ever since we got home, which I guess makes him a pretty devoted traveler, just like his mom & dad! It was great to spend time with my family, and Larson loved playing with his cousin, riding in Bompa's golfcart & practicing on the putting green.