Pomerleau Family Blog

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!

Having a blast climbing the play structure at Lone Pine Farm

I love those goats

Sending food up the chute to the goats above

About to go down the slide

The goats sure are motivated by food

She could have fed the goats for hours

Swinging away such a beautiful day

A new baby and a fun trip to OMSI

On July 25^th my youngest sister Tory welcomed her little girl Sierra Clare to the world. This is the third niece I have (Sean’s sister has two little girls). We were so happy to hear of her entrance to the world and love her sweet chubby little face. I can’t wait to get my baby snuggles hopefully soon with her.

My new niece-Sierra Clare

The next day I took the kids to OMSI. They had a really neat Pompeii exhibit going on that the kids and I were excited to see. We went to the exhibit first and the kids had a lot of fun seeing the exhibit and going through the volcano 3D simulation video. I enjoyed seeing all the little artifacts they were able to recover and reading about how life was in Pompeii all those years ago. I couldn’t believe how advance they were in their science and tools 2000 years ago. It made us really excited to learn more about them and I bought the Magic Tree House book about Pompeii that I am reading to the kids. The kids also had a lot of fun in the other parts of OMSI too including the water room.

OMSI Pompeii exhibit

Excited to go back into Roman times

Building an arch and using the puzzle pieces to figure out how to build it

Brandon next to the tiger

Water play in OMSI-so much fun with the fountains

Brandon had fun too!

A Birthday Party and Bike Riding

We raced home from Sun River to get to Olivia’s good friend from Rocking Horse Kennedy’s birthday party. We hit some bad traffic and ended up being 30 minutes late but the kids had a lot of fun celebrating at Metro Gymnastics. Olivia loved seeing her bestie Lauren and they got to trapeze together across the gymnastics floor. The kids had gotten quite good at riding bikes in Sun River and wanted to practice riding bikes when they got back in the neighborhood. We had a fun evening bike ride in the neighborhood where we looked for the neighborhood Peacock (we couldn’t find her). The next day we went to Cook Park and had a fun bike ride all the way to the Hidden Park (Durham Park) which was two miles round trip. It is so fun that the kids have gotten so good at their bike riding!