Church Swim Day

For over twenty years, we have had a very special treat made available to us. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, a family from our church opens up their pool to anyone in the church to come and swim one day a week. When I was a kid, we went to Hassle Acres every Tuesday to swim. Now (the day has been moved) I can take my kids to Hassle Acres to swim any Thursday of the summer.

Due to the chaos of life, we don't always make it, but today we did and the boys had a big time. One nice thing about this pool is that it is T shaped and so there is a clear distinction between the deep and the shallow and the deep end is just as big as the shallow end. This picture below is Ezra swimming in the shallow end. This was his first time breaking away from me (or the steps) and swimming (with his life vest) by himself.

Jonah and Elijah also both started jumping off the diving board with confidence. This is a picture

of the deep end and Elijah about to jump off. (Of course he still has to wear his mask and hold on to it when jumps in.)Here is Jonah jumping off the diving board. Here is Isaiah. He really can't swim yet, but only because he won't get his face wet. He usually wears a life vest too, but had taken it off before I took this picture.
And then there is Malachi. Right after we got to the pool, he was sitting on the steps (with his life vest on) and fell into the water. Jonah found him (I had turned my back to help Ezra--after all Malachi never even wanted to get into the water) swim -- dog paddling -- a few feet away from the steps. Needless to say, he didn't touch the water again the whole day.