Swimming, S'moring, and Soccer Momming

Let's blame the ease and safety of splash pads for getting us this far making my kids believe we were "swimming" every time they donned their swimsuits and frolicked through a few fountains. 

But frolicking through fountains does little to actually teach your kid how to stay afloat in a body of standing water, so we were starting to have a real problem as we found ourselves with a 7-year-old who still had no concept of how to do more than hold his breath and hope for the best when faced with any body of water larger than a puddle. 

To swim lessons we did go. 

The trouble with swim lessons is they don't accept kids younger than 3. That means I'm sidelined with this dude, desperately trying to convince him to stay on dry land while he sees everyone else splashing around in the pool. I was overwhelmingly under prepared to keep Lincoln at bay during the first lesson, leaving me eternally grateful the lessons are no more than 30 minutes a day. 

Lessons end with a jump off the diving board!

Day 2 I came prepared with cars, trucks, trains, and snacks for this little two-ligan. It worked. All it took was one police car that he clutched just like this for the full 30 minutes to occupy him through the whole lesson. Mom win!

After Eli's first lesson, he was a little self conscious that he was the oldest swimmer, but the least experienced. He took it upon himself to practice while he waits for his turn with the teacher. I've been so impressed with his self determination to improve! Way to be a go-getter, Eli!

Carson loves the water and is right on track with the rest of his class. 

Day 3 with Lincoln and I had to resort to pulling out a little magnetic book I had bought for Lincoln to take on our upcoming trip to California. 

This little sweets has slept through every swim lesson so far, bless his soul.

Here's Lincoln trying to convince me to start calling him Sweets again.

Jeff's parents came for the weekend in anticipation of Jonah's blessing on Sunday. Mary brought us all t-shirts from their travels home.

We spent Saturday afternoon at City Creek because what better way to welcome them back home than the same way we sent them off...

Saturday evening we went up to the mountains for a campfire.

Lincoln buddied right up to David.

While Jonah buddied up to Grandma.

Lincoln preferred his marshmallows "raw" and eaten in one bite.

Carson and Eli were surprisingly skilled roasters. I didn't see a single mallow on fire out of either of them!

Notice the hand on the leg. So sweet!

 Here's a happy baby practicing his smiles for his big upcoming day.

Remember how when you last heard from me I was repeatedly chanting "I will survive 4 kids?" We made a big purchase to make that survival plan a little easier for me. 

We had been peeking into the mini van market for quite some time, but we just couldn't justify the purchase when we had the Yukon that was suiting us just fine.

Well, we have a trip to California planned and the Yukon had a fuel pump issue. I mean, I guess you can say the Yukon has a fuel pump issue because after Jeff made a very valiant attempt to try to fix the fuel pump himself, what remained of the car was large portions of the underbelly of the car strewn about our garage, and an unavoidable tow to the car shop.

As we weighed the costs of fixing the Yukon versus instead dumping our money into a new car, we chose new car. We found just the van we wanted in just the color we wanted at just the price we wanted on KSL so we went for it!

It has luxuries like doors the open and close themselves, a back up camera, and I'm convinced it can pretty much drive itself leaving me to call it a robot and trusting it with a little more responsibility than it probably deserves like I sometimes find myself thinking it will park itself or stop me if I get too close to hitting something, or drive me all the way to California while I take a nap in the backseat.

While it may not have all those robotic features, it is definitely a lot more computerized than any vehicle I've ever owned. We're trying to come up with a name for it and my top pick is "BatVan" but for some reason the boys are unconvinced? We've recently become obsessed with the Lego Batman Movie so I think BatVan is a good fit. Especially with the Rav4 we could have BatVan and Ravvin'. Good, right?!? Help me convince the children how clever I am. And help me convince Jeff we need to add a Batman logo to the back window of the car to really solidify the naming process.

I love our new van! I had approximately 1 minute of buyer's remorse, which is less than what I had for a swimsuit I recently purchased so that's a pretty good indication I'm satisfied with the purchase. It was much needed and has made all of us that much more excited for our upcoming road trip!

With 4 kids and a van to haul them around in, I've happily joined the ranks of soccer mom!