Is Winter Over Yet?

It sure felt like winter was on it's way out yesterday. I think that it got up to nearly 70 deg here. The plan had always been to get out and go for a swim in the morning. We still just go to the Cessna Fitness Center Pool...cheap entertainment. Desmond has been having more fun at the pool on the last few trips than he has in the past. It may be at least partly due to the cool arm floaties and sweet goggles that we got for him.

Emma got a new swim suit, but only because she grew out of her old one. Emma loves to swim. She likes to get out and then jump back in over and over. The sensation of falling (with someone holding on to her of course) and then splashing into the water never gets old to her. Desmond is still reluctant to go into deeper water alone, but he still likes to run around splashing and yelling. I think that its a pretty good release for him.

And who doesn't like getting some food right after a nice long swim? Yeah! That's also become a integral part of our swim mornings. Yesterday, after a nice helping of junk food, we went to the library. The library is one of our Saturday morning "must-do" activities. Typically it's just D and Pops, but we all went this time. D gets four books and one movie each week, and Pops usually gets one or two movies and a couple CD's...who has time to read? Anyway, last week we had to pay $20 for a book that was supposedly damaged to the extent that it couldn't be lent to anyone...it had to be replaced. It was a Dora the Explorer book that I, without question, remember being damaged before we had it. Of course everyone in that position claims the same thing, but it was aggravating. We went down there, paid the fine and demanded to take receipt of our new Dora book. There was some satisfaction from the fact that the librarian didn't know how to make in item "no longer library property". It took her about 20 minutes as we found our new books and movies to figure it out. In the end I guess not even the library is free. Pardon the rant, but $20 for a Dora book with pages missing and marker scribbling on all that remained...

So after the library we went to a nearby playground for a while. Emma was all smiles when she got to go down the slide for the first time in her life. D also went down the slide several times. The air was very dry, and the slide is plastic, so after many trips down the slide his hair started to stand up from the static he was generating. He was starting to look like a mad scientist.

After we got home it was impossible to stay inside because it was so nice out. We all went out and worked on the backyard. Desmond and Pops dug up yet another stump, and Mom raked up a bunch of sticks and leaves. Emma just wandered around looking at all of the things she had never even expected existed. For instance, rocks...fun to pick up and throw, but harder to chew that one would think. In the end everyone got dirty and had fun being outside. As we were cleaning up Pops showed D how to cup his hands together to hold water so that he could splash it on his face to get clean. For Diamond D learning this was the cherry on top of a very fine day.