Pomerleau Family Blog: September 2017

A fun weekend in August

We found ourselves with a rare free weekend the second weekend in August. Olivia had a fun birthday party on Saturday morning and then we decided to beat the heat and head to the outdoor pool that is close by. The kids had a blast playing at the outdoor pool for several hours. There was a fun younger kid area with a smaller slide and water features. There was also a large slide that both Brandon and Olivia had fun going down. It was a very hot day in the high 90s so it was perfect to cool off. It was also fun for Brandon and Olivia to continue practicing their swimming that they learned through their summer swim lessons.

Swimming at the lazy river with Daddy

Brandon having fun swimming

Olivia liked the froggy slide

Sean with Olivia near the froggy slide

Brandon swimming in the lazy river

Olivia and Sean swimming

Reunited in the lazy river

The kids participated in the Tigard Library's summer reading program. Part of the completion reward is that they got reduced ticket costs for Oak Park Amusement Park ride bracelets. We chose to go the next day, a Sunday. It was supposed to be close to 90 degrees and was quite smokey that day due to the wild fires. We got there mid morning and there was hardly any one there. Much to Olivia's delight she was able to go on all of the rides except for 3 as she was tall enough! The first rides near the entrance were the more adventurous rides and both kids had a blast on them! I even overcame my fear of heights and did the Zipper where you go upside down with Olivia. I was amazed that she wasn't scared to go on it.

Excited for some rides!

Fun first ride!

Selfie on the zipper

Sean and Brandon on the zipper

Brandon having a blast!

Olivia liked the carousel

Waiting in line for the roller coaster

Riding in the front with his sister on the roller coaster

We went on rides for a few hours and then headed into the indoor skating rink since our tickets came with a free roller skating session. Olivia caught on pretty well with roller skating but poor Brandon just kept falling all over the place and had to be near a wall. After we finished roller skating we went on some more rides for another hour. We ended up going on all the rides, which is a good feat since I believe there are 25 rides. The rides were older 80s style similar to a lot of fair rides but the kids didn't care and had a blast. I found that my adult stomach cannot handle tons of rides like my youth stomach could. The kids keep talking about wanting to go back!

Daddy helping her get her roller skates on

Roller skating!

Doing a pretty good job balancing

Both kids liked the Frog Hopper

Turning the wheel to make us go faster

Jet fighter!

Brandon had fun too!

Family selfie on the pirate ship!

Summer swim lessons and a birthday party

I made it a priority this summer to get the kids very comfortable in the water. They had been doing

swim lessons at the YMCA off and on in the winter and spring but the lessons were only once a week so it was hard to build upon what they learned. Brandon also had Little League so he did not do any swim lessons in the spring. I wanted to make sure the kids were much more comfortable in the water and teach them how to swim. Olivia started the summer in Pike class (this was her second time doing the class). Her other Pike class was pretty short. In the summer, the classes are Monday-Thursday for two weeks at the same time. We did a short first session (during 4th of July week) that resulted us in missing one class due to being at the coast and then there was no class on the 4th and then one of the classes got cancelled due to a kid pooping in the pool so we only ended up doing 5 of the 8 classes. The kids did well but did not learn quite as well as they would have if they did the full session. Olivia was on the border line of moving up to Eel so to make Brandon's class and her class fall together I just bumped her up. Brandon did Guppy again (which is the 2nd class for the school age kids and has 6-12 year olds in his class) and is quite challenging as the kids have to be able to swim free style 25 yards using side breathing and they learn back stroke and elementary back stroke.

The second session that I had the kids in ran the first part of August. I was able to get the lessons to coordinate at the same time and was at 5:30 which was nice since the last swim lessons were at 4:45 and I had to rush after work to get there on time. Brandon's first class only had one other kid in it but then another kid joined so there were three in his class. Olivia's class was also pretty small with three other kids in her class (all boys!). Olivia started the summer barely putting her head under the water. By the end of her swim lessons she now consistently puts her head under water, has begun to learn how to swim independently, can float on her back for a few seconds, and loves to jump into the pool from the side. She mastered about half of the Eel goals so will have to do again but I remember Brandon having to do the Eel class several times since it was quite a bit of a jump from the Pike Class.

Brandon made a huge jump in his swimming ability. He was able to do everything he needed to do to pass Guppy except the side breathing consistently on his front crawl stroke. It was so neat to see him be able to swim across the entire length of a swimming pool. Both of the kids are quite comfortable in the water and they seemed to love their swimming lessons. We will do again in the fall once soccer is over.

Brandon working away on his back

Brandon swimming away

Olivia at her lesson

Fun group float time

Last day of swim lessons fun fountains

Olivia had a fun birthday party for her good friend Adelaide who turned 4 the first weekend in August at Pump It Up Jr. It was fun to go to the party and see all of her good friends. Olivia especially loved repeatedly going down the slides over and over again with the birthday girl. She got quite a bit of exercise and had a blast!

Olivia and the birthday girl Adelaide

Enjoying a snack

Having some pizza with her friends

During the last week of swim lessons towards the middle of August we had a very hot spell with temperatures in the 100s for over a week straight. On the day it hit 106, we also happened to lose power for several hours. Luckily we had swim lessons so we headed there first and then went out to dinner at McMennamins. It was also very smokey due to all the wild fires. I got a photo of the smokey sunset when left McMennamins and headed home. Luckily when we got home we found our power had just been restored so we did not lose any refrigerated or frozen items.

Yes it reached 106 one day-unbearable

Olivia and Daddy at McMennamins during our power outage

Smokey hot sunset

Later that week we had a fun evening with the Mowery family. We went over to there house and had pizza and played over there. Afterwards we went to Deer Creek and had fun playing at their playground. The air still was pretty smokey.

Logan and Brandon swinging at Deer Creek

A Wedding and a Quick Trip to Eugene

The weekend after we got to Sun River was our 11^th wedding anniversary. Sean’s good friend Jesse from middle school happened to get married on our anniversary date (July 29^th) in Eugene. So we packed the car up Saturday morning and headed to Eugene for the weekend. We got to Eugene early afternoon and had lunch at Sean’s parent’s house and then hung for a couple hours. Sean’s parents graciously volunteered to babysit the kids for us for the evening so we could have a kid-free night and the kids were super excited to hang out with Grammy and Papa. We took a couple cute photos at Sean’s parents’ house and then left for the wedding at around 4:00 PM. The wedding was out on the McKenzie River on a cute Christmas tree farm called Noble Fir. It was nice because Sean was reunited with many of his close friends from high school that we got to hang out with. It was a really cute ceremony and then we got to have yummy Hawaiian food for dinner. Then there was a lot of fun dancing. We stayed until the last dance and then went out to a fun bar with our friends. It was liberating not to have kids to have stay home with.

All dressed up for the wedding

Pictures with Live before the wedding

Livie selfie!

At the wedding venue-right on the Deschutes River very pretty

Fun props!

The gang from high school reunited!

All of Sean's good friends from South Eugene High School

The next day we went to our favorite farm with the kids in Eugene, Lone Pine Farms which is about 20 minutes from Sean’s parents’ house. The kids and I like to go there to feed the goats and pet them. They have food that you can buy to feed them which is fun. They also have horses and a really fun wooden play structure. The kids ran off a lot of energy before we went in the car and we had fun purchasing some fresh organic produce before heading home. Sean made an awesome Cobb salad that night from the produce that we purchased. It was a very fun and full weekend!