Summer Fun: More Visitors, Swim Lessons, and a Tornado

 The kids started another round of swimming lessons this week.  It is every day for 2 weeks at a different pool than the one we were going to for the homeschool swim lessons. It is a fairly new facility and I thought it would be fun to try it out. The pool is beautiful with a glass roof that can slide open. The kids realized that they could hide in the lockers and have been playing hide and seek with baby L every day.

Brother M's lesson ends about 10 minutes earlier than big sis A, so he gets to hang out and read books with us a little.

 Here is A her first time going off the diving board:

Practicing her streamline:

Another favorite activity this week has been taming the kittens a little more each day as they play with them in the basement. 

 
A tornado passed through our town about a half mile north of us.  A lot of neighbors and friends had serious damage, but we were completely fine other than a few tree limbs falling down and the power being out for about 36 hours.

 We had some out of town guests, Aunt C and Cousin J, that had to suffer through the power outage with us, which was sad. They were great sports about it though.  Luckily, we were planning to have dinner on the grill that night anyway.

 We had to cook a few things on the grill that we were not planning to... like corn on the cob. It turned out surprisingly delicious.

Right after the storm ended, before we knew that there had been a tornado, we decided to go strawberry picking.

 Happy cousins -- they had a great time playing together.

Daddy came home from work early to hang out with his sister and ended up arriving right before the power went out and the storm broke.  I was so glad that he was there.

A perfect day in the life of a toddler - gorging on endless amounts of fresh strawberries in the sun, with sticky juice running down your face and all over your hands.

So yummy!

 Here are some pictures of us reading stories just before bed when the power was out. Fun times with flashlights, like camping in our own house.