Tah Dah! Yes, we are alive......7/9/09

Okay, so I guess it's been a while. Well, a LONG while, right? So, what have we been up to?

Rich finished Kindergarten. With flying colors, this proud mama might add. He did a little bit of summer school and was familiarized with a new computer (BrailleNote) that he'll start using fairly regularly next year. It's quite a fancy piece of equipment. We're working on teaching Rich that it's not a toy. He is intrigued because it has different synthesized speech voices and speeds. The faster he can make it, the more the words sound like Alvin & the Chipmunks. He is also taking swimming lessons this summer. He's doing really well. He can jump off the side of the pool with no hands, likes to find the bottom, and is swimming about 10 feet by himself. In his classes, they're also working on smaller dives. His comment a few days ago was "can't we live under the water, mama?" So, we spend a lot of time at the Y.

Abigail is on the 2nd squad of the swim team at the Y. It's a new team that's starting up because the Y itself is brand new. She has practice 3 times a week in addition to all the family time we spend at the pool. She is getting anxious to start 4th grade.

Richard and I have been taking adult swim lessons at the Y and we are both getting very good. He's intent on learning all the strokes, where I'm more concerned with swimming freestyle back and forth, building up endurance and figuring out flip turns. Those have taken me a while. Richard has mastered breast stroke, free style, back and side. He just started working on butterfly tonight. In June, we had the teacher to ourselves. Now, there are several other people, so we don't get the individual attention we did. I'm glad we have that foundation to build on, rather than trying to get more time with the instructor.

Richard is still busy at work. I'm off for July and trying to get a project done in the bathroom. I have all the wallpaper down. Now, I need to re-mud the walls and get it painted. Then I can hang new towel bars and such. I'm looking forward to getting it done. I've been dawdling, so it's not gotten done as quickly as it could have.

The pets are all doing fine. The dogs need to visit the vet, but I haven't told them that yet. It's certainly NOT their favorite place to visit.