Official End of Summer

Our swimming pool was closed on Friday afternoon. This is our official marker of the J-M End of Summer and Start of Fall. Here's the 2009 End of Summer Swimming Report:

Meera:

• holds face, face-down, in water
• blows bubbles
• go completely under water, submerged, for up to 3 seconds (or as long as her parents can stand it!)
  
• walks/jumps off edge of pool into water
• "dives" off of pool steps into water
• when holding her on her belly, she'll kick and kick and kick
  

K & O:

• jumps of all kinds of crazy varieties from side of pool and (...their favorite...) from a chair positioned at side of pool
• full forward flips into pool from side of pool or from the chair
• 3 kinds of dives: Swan Dive, Racing Dive, "Streamline Dive" (thanks to Calvin, who is teaching them not just how to swim, but competitive/racing swimming)
• all 5 strokes: freestyle (or as I've always called it, "the crawl"), backstroke, back crawl, breaststroke, butterfly (they are really good at the butterfly-- this is their strongest stroke)
• can swim underwater for width of pool, and about 1/2 of length of pool
• can tread water for long periods of time
• can retrieve multiple objects in one dive from deepest part of bottom of pool
  
• can do racing "flip turns" underwater off of inside wall of pool
• forward and backward rolls (somersaults) underwater
  
• handstands underwater
• snorkeling with full gear (masks, snorkels, and fins)
  

As promised (they've been asking for many months now), to mark the Official Start of Fall, we finally got the boys a ramp for the driveway. We set it up today and they tried it out for the first time with their bikes, then their scooters, then their skateboards. We're moving on to a new season. Out with the old and in with the new----- Fall has arrived!!!!!!!!!