Swim lessons at Ida Lee

After the progress Natalie made from her swim lessons at preschool last year (the last 30 minutes of school every Wednesday was a swim lesson in the Ida lee pool), we definitely wanted to keep going with the swim lessons this summer. Natalie has fallen in love with swimming, and we definitely want to encourage that; it's really great to see her getting better and better!

Evan took her the first week (she has lessons Tues/Thurs for 4 weeks), and I took her last week. I of course couldn't pass up the opportunity to document her lessons! We arrived a bit early, as I had the wrong time in my calendar, so I got a few photos of the pool while we waited.

 The above photo are the 12' deep lanes where she had her lesson that day. The lesson started with swimming using a kick board and a noodle.

 The boards were then taken away and the girls got started on the main point of this "Swimmer" class: side breathing. Her teacher, Mr. Billy, has really been focusing on getting them to use an overhand swim stroke, face in the water to breathe out, then turn their head to the side to bring in a breath, face back in the water, etc. Natalie is still having some difficulty in blowing out while her face is in the water (she's still holding it the whole time), so when she lifts it to take a breath she has to blow out and take a breath, which is harder. She's starting to get better, even since this class a week ago, which is great!

 Here's Mr. Billy helping to demonstrate side breathing to her. This photo cracks me up!

Video 1: Natalie swimming almost the whole length of the pool!

Video 2: The girls then got up on the dive/jump platforms to jump into the water. Last summer she had to use a floaty around her waist to be able to make that jump (she couldn't have pulled herself up out of the water if she went all the way under, much less swum back to the side!)...we are so proud of her progress!

Afternoon at the beach

While spending 5 days at the Outer Banks, we actually only made it to the beach for any length of time once. As much as I love the ocean, the kids are still a bit hesitant, and the water was COLD, making it difficult for them to spend any quality time in the water. Also, it was too hot to be on the beach for an extended period, so it just wasn't ideal for being there. Since we found the awesome little beach in Kill Devil Bay, we decided that was just a better location for taking the kids to for some water fun. However, we couldn't not go to the beach at least once!

So, while my mom was sleeping after working the night before, Dad, Evan and I took the kids down to the beach for a bit. As I said, the water was cold but the sun was so hot that it ended up feeling good! The kids did both go in the water (with us holding them), and Natalie and I spent a LOT of time sitting in the sand where the waves washed up, letting them roll over us. It's very exfoliating to do that to your skin, right?!

Always looking for an opportunity to get some artistic shots, I grabbed this one of Dad, Natalie, and Evan.

And this one of a flock(?) of pelicans (love the surfer in front!)

Everything was just so blue!!

The waves weren't huge, but decent enough to allow a couple of surfers to get up.

This little cutie was with the family near our spot. She had no fear of the waves, and would stand to watch them, then go running in, get knocked over, and get right back up again. I love this shot of her!

Of course, there's my little cutie, too :)

I did think ahead to bring some snacks, so after a while of playing in the sand and sea, it was time for snack!

Dad did his best to get a family shot of us. Sadly, Henry was not cooperating with having his picture taken, but I still like the shot!

And got a couple of nice ones of Evan and I, too.

Lastly, he had the idea to put Henry's towel on his head and have me take this photo. I swear, it was NOT my idea :) Love my goofy dad!

Beauty at Wolf Trap

Kathy and I arrived at Wolf Trap for Brandi Carlile a bit early - before the first of two opening acts even went on! So, we wandered about the main grounds for a while, near the entrance to the Filene Center, taking some photos of the beauty that we saw.

Concert #3: Brandi Carlile

Yes, third concert in the past month! This was the one I was looking forward to the most - I absolutely love Brandi Carlile; this is the 5th time I've seen her perform since 2009. I've seen her in a variety of venues: first at the 9:30 club in DC, then at the Downtown Mall amphitheater in Charlottesville (where unfortunately she was not the headlining act, so her set was only 1 hour and then I had to sit through the dreck that was Ray LaMontagne afterwards), then an acoustic set (just her and guitar, no band) at the Birchmere in Alexandria (my girlfriends and I agreed that was one of the best shows we'd seen), then last year at Wolf Trap, and this year she was back at Wolf Trap again! I absolutely love this venue

She doesn't have a new CD out this year, so she's mostly still promoting Bear Creek, her most recent album, but I will see her at any time, anywhere! We didn't have as good of seats this year as last year (last year we were about 6 rows back; this time we were in the first row of the rear orchestra, as that was the best I could get), but it didn't matter - she's so good no matter what! My sister was supposed to go with me, but she wasn't able to get off of work, so Kathy joined me instead, and we had a blast. Rachel was also there, but a friend of hers had front row orchestra seats - they were one foot from the stage, and Brandi and Phil (the bass player) both high-fived them at the end. I kind of hate her right now :)

I brought my new camera again, and put the 30x zoom to full use!

 The whole band came together to do a few songs acoustically.

This time I did not have the issues with sound in the videos that I had at fun. I'm thinking it was a combo of how loud the fun concert was and where we were standing. I took a lot of videos, many of which are way too long to put on here, including a 6+ minute cover of "The Chain" by Fleetwood Mac that was AMAZING, as was her solo cover of Radiohead's "Creep" (just her and an electric guitar). She just gets better every single time!! 

This is one of my favorite songs - "What Can I Say" off of her first album.

Concert #2: fun.

On Saturday, Beth, Kathy, Rachel and myself headed up to Merriweather Post for the second time this summer (the first being when we saw Of Monsters and Men last month), this time to see fun. with opening act Tegan and Sara. Given the heat and possible bad weather, and the fact that we didn't care too much about seeing Tegan and Sara (they're not bad, but not a favorite of any of ours), we arrived during their penultimate song. They closed with their current radio hit "Closer", which was the only one I really wanted to hear of theirs anyway, so we didn't miss much!

Unlike Of Monsters and Men, this time we didn't have seats - we chose to purchase tickets down in the pit area (standing room only). We kept second guessing that decision, anticipating being crammed in with a ton of sweaty, smelly, 20 year old hipsters. Turns out that we had plenty of room around us, were only about 20 feet from the stage, there was a huge fan overhead keeping us cool, and we actually had a better view than when we saw them at the 9:30 club last year! And given the thunderstorm that rolled through at the beginning of their set, drenching everyone on the lawn, I think we chose well.

The band came out and sang the "Some Nights Intro" first. We couldn't believe they were in tuxedos - there's no way they're going to do that the whole show, right?!

 Of course immediately after, the tuxedos were removed and normal band concert wear revealed.

Here you can see how close we were to the stage!

 It was very difficult to get a non-blurry shot of Nate Ruess, the lead singer. He was all over the stage (as you can see in the videos below). One of the reasons they are such a fun band (pun intended!) is because of the energy. He's really incredible. So, when I was able to get a shot where he was actually still, I took it!

 I liked this one because most of the band members were all together in one spot.

 At the end of one song (and I cannot for the life of me remember which one; I believe it was a song from their first album), huge confetti cameras went off. It was really, really cool to be directly underneath!

I took the above photos and some videos with my new Canon point and shoot. The quality on the photos is definitely better than when taken with my iPhone, and the quality on the video is AMAZING as you will see below. However, what I did not anticipate was the amount of feedback/static that would be caused in the videos when the music gets up. When it's mostly Nate (and the audience) singing, the audio is great; when the music kicks in - static city. So, sorry for that - I've tried to choose videos that have primarily singing, and less big sound. It's a shame; not sure why that happened - my guess is proximity to the stage/speakers? 

(Also you can see that "Carry On" was performed just after the canons went off!)

This one I'm posting for my dad - sorry, Dad, that there is so much static in it when the music is loud, but since I know you like the song so much, I have to post it here anyway.

At about this point, I noticed that the battery light was flashing at me pretty hardcore, so I had to switch to cell phone. I grabbed a few photos at the end of the show - loved these lights!

And one last video, taken at the end of the show (before the encore), this time with my phone

And what good is being at a concert with friends if you don't do a couple of selfies?

Such a great concert - can't wait for the third summer concert we're going to, later this week!

Day 2 at Kill Devil Bay

Ok, back to posts about our trip to the Outer Banks! I previously posted about the fun we had in Kill Devil Bay on July 4; we liked it there so much, and the kids had such a nice time the day before that we decided to go back! While there on July 4, we saw some other kids there that had canoes; the kids thought that was really cool. We didn't want to get a canoe, but we did find a blow-up raft boat at Kmart that worked very well!

Henry wasn't a huge fan at first, although he did go in it later with me. Natalie was a huge fan, and loved being pushed around, as well as loved to push me around!

After being there for only a few minutes, we were joined by a new friend - Ellie!

The owner was thrilled that my kids were enjoying throwing the ball for her; he went back up to the gazebo and sat with his wife while Natalie and Henry took turns throwing the ball. Much fun for all!

It's always fun to find things in the water (I believe these are sticks of some sort)

I had been sitting in the water leaning back on my hands, when I felt something run over my hand. I jerked it away, and looking down through the foot of water, saw a little crab (probably about 5" long) that had apparently come over to investigate my fingers. No pinching, but I still didn't want him crawling on me! I called the kids over to see it, and they started walking "like crabs". When I joined them "scuttling" along the bottom, Henry jumped on my back so he could be the "baby crab".

Pop-pop joined us after he was done working, and he and Grandma were sitting out in their chairs in the water. He threw Natalie in the water once, and then she realized how much fun it would be to jump off of him. Photo op!

I purchased a bikini this summer for the first time in over 6 years - yay weight loss! I figure if I can wear it on the beach in front of strangers, I can post it here for everyone to see.