Swimming at Sarah's Party

On Sunday, Aunt Laura and Uncle Bryan hosted a party for Hallie's oldest cousin, the newly-minted 8th grade graduate Sarah. (We would have included a picture of Sarah on the blog but we never got one! But we did want to say that we are incredibly proud of how well she did and all of the seven fabulous awards she won at graduation).

Really it was two parties, the first of which was a staid get together for family and the little kids who had a great time swimming in the pool, and the second of which was a much more boisterous event geared toward a gaggle of 14 year old girls and a few boys. Needless to say, the music was both of a different genre and at much varied decibel levels at each of the shindigs.

Given our track record of never being able to get out of the house with all of our gear before around 2 or 3pm, we stayed the night with Sharon's mom, which allowed us to be on time for once. Of course, we had to feed Hallie lunch pretty much upon our arrival, and, though she had the usual distraction of Sesame Street, she watched the kids playing in the pool on the deck longingly. As soon as her lunch settled in her tummy (very important because her system had been upset since Saturday evening when we fed her a potato chip that had probably been cross-contaminated by rice starch---who knew that this was used in a lot of commercial chips?---we changed her into her swimsuit and Sharon got in the pool with her. What's very funny, or at least surprising, is that Hallie kind of thought that she knew how to swim (the pool is around 3 feet deep). Perhaps swimming is a reflexive skill. In any event, she doesn't know how to swim, even if she got into doggie paddle position very instinctively. but it's nice to know that she's not afraid of the water. Indeed, she had a blast, as these pictures demonstrate:






We definitely will look into getting Hallie swim lessons this fall/winter!

All that swimming is pretty hard work, so Hallie and Sharon jumped in the hammock for a nap:


How blissful!