The Huinker Family Blog: Swimming Lessons

The first two weeks in July both girls took swimming lessons. Grace did two rounds of the pre-school lessons (1 week each), and Olivia was in Level II this year. It was really nice for me to have so much more ease at drop-offs than in previous summers! Liv was occasionally difficult to drop off last year, but this year, her overall maturation made it quite simple...and it probably didn't hurt that she could see her sis right across the pool. Grace did well too - she probably like seeing Olivia too; plus, she totally had a crush on one of her teacher! :)

Anyways, Grace passed the pre-school lessons with flying colors both times and had a super fun time. Olivia will continue in Level II next year, but I was pretty impressed with her growth overall in terms of strokes, etc. We're hoping to get her into some private Luther lessons this fall - everyone says that that's where their kids really showed the most improvement, and it will be a great "big girl" activity for her. Overall, it definitely helped that our lesson time happened to be the hottest two weeks of the summer too!

Here are a few pictures from the last day of class when they open up the slide - you'll notice Olivia didn't get nearly the photo attention that Grace did (whoops).

Olivia's favorite thing about the pool this year...getting to go down the slide by herself! She was tall enough this year, and it didn't take her long to figure out how to propel herself to the side when she hit the bottom to get out of the current. I'd say that on average she goes down the slide 15-20 times each time we're at the pool! It's awesome for her to have such a "big girl" and independent activity.

While Grace was a huge fan of the slide last year, she was NOT a fan at the beginning of the summer. However, after our Wisconsin Dells trip, she seemed to come back around to the whole idea. Just like she does with Brian and me, Grace took a few trips down with one of her teachers before gathering the courage to try going down by herself (being caught at the bottom because she's not tall enough yet). I'm convinced that she did this purely because Mitch wanted her too (see below)! :)