Swim Lessons

Today was Brooklyn's last day at regular swim lessons. She has come a long way since starting. Today she had her "survival test". She didn't do so good. Being in her clothes was VERY disturbing to her. However, she did float on her back and try to kick to the side. After what seemed like FOREVER she finally made it to the side of the pool.
Here's a few videos from a couple of weeks ago. They're more fun to watch than the frustrating test video. Luckily we have some left over make up lessons to do. Hopefully once a month will keep her skills up.

San Clemente, September 2010

This summers San Clemente trip was a little different than previous trips. I stayed out there for a few days by myself while Curt worked and finished our fireplace at home. Being VERY pregnant we decided it wouldn't be the best idea for me to be alone the whole time so Noelle came and stayed for a night.
We took one trip down to the beach while she was with us. It wasn't the best day. Brooklyn had her first bee sting! My worst nightmare. I hate bees and have never been stung myself. She was a trooper though. You can't really tell but her little pinky finger was swollen. Poor baby!:(


The Van Duyns joined us for the weekend. Like always Brooklyn and Wyatt had a great time together. The weather wasn't the best so we only spent a couple hours at the beach that weekend. For an outing we decided to go down to the tide pools.
Curt attempted to show Brook some starfish. For some reason she's convinced herself that his goal was to throw her into the water. She had a death grip on his neck pretty much the whole time.

Wyatt tried to get her to go closer to the water but she wasn't having it.

Showing Wyatt what she discovered on the cliffs.


She found a nice, safe place to sit.

LOVE little sandy feet!!


They're SO cute together!

Even though it was cold, Eric decided to tough it out and go for a little swim:)

The weather for the remainder of the week wasn't the greatest. We toughed it out and went to the beach anyways.
No more pictures please!


The last 2 days of our trip had perfect weather. So we took advantage and spent them at the beach. Brooklyn loved it when Curt would dig a hole for her to play in. She had a great time.

Mammoth, July 2010

This year's Mammoth trip proved to be quite the adventure. In what should have been about a 6 hour ride there it took 11 hours. One of our trailer tires blew. Nothing like that had ever happened to us before. We were stranded on the side of the road in the middle of the dessert for a couple of hours waiting for AAA. When the guy finally showed up the service ended up being pretty useless seeing as Curt had to do most the work. Brooklyn was a trooper. She stayed in her seat the whole time and didn't even complain. She never fell asleep once the whole 11 hour trip and still was good. So after the tire was fixed we stopped at a gas station/Subway for gas and lunch. As Curt was filling up the truck he heard a peculiar noise coming from another tire. Sure enough there was another one that was about to pop. He went into the gas station and bought some stuff that's supposed to keep the tire sealed. He put it in and we quickly jumped back in the truck and started moving. After a few miles he pulled over to check it. He wasn't sure how much longer it would hold. So we made the decision to stop at the upcoming rest stop. Better to be stranded there than the side of the road. It was a good thing we stopped because when we got there the tire was pretty much torn to shreds. Having already used the spare tire we were in quite a bind. After talking to his dad Curt decided to try his truck spare. It worked! Brooklyn got to take a break from her car seat and get the wiggles out so it was a good stop, despite the thunder storm that decided to make an appearance as soon as we got there.
After that whole ordeal we finally made it up the mountain. We decided to stay at a different camp that night since the one we had reservations for was kinda hard to get to. That was a good call. The next morning Curt went to check out the site and realized that we could not fit our trailer in the spot. So we went on a search for somewhere else to stay for the next couple of nights. After some searching we finally found a couple of nice spots and Grammy & Papa joined us that night. We enjoyed a couple of nights at a site with no hookups but it was pretty secluded and really pretty. We then headed over to our final destination to meet up with the rest of the Vander Molen families.

Brooklyn had a great time playing with her cousins and meeting a bunch of family for the first time. By the end of the week she thought everyone was her cousin.

Auntie Danelle had some great crafts planned to keep the kiddos busy.

We took Brooklyn on her first fishing trip. She was a real natural.




Maddie LOVES the water. At the end of each fishing trip we let her swim for a little bit. She couldn't have been happier.

Brooklyn's favorite activity while fishing....


It took a small hike to get to this fishing place. Brooklyn loved the backpack and even got to help bring in her first fish!






The trip flew by and before we knew it, it was time to go home. We loaded up all our stuff and headed down the mountain. Sure enough on the way down what we feared would happen, happened. A 3rd trailer tire blew! Awesome. And to top it off whatever came off the tire when it blew flew off and hit one of the boat trailer tires, popping it. So we were back to square one stranded on the side of the road with 2 flat tires. A highway patrol officer stopped and helped Curt change the tire. (He had found a used spare in Mammoth just in case.) He inflated the boat tire and we attempted driving again to get to the next town. The highway patrol got next to us and motioned for Curt to pull over. The boat tire was pretty much gone. We used our phones and found a near-by RV resort to stay at for the night and ditched the boat on the side of the road. We got temporarily set up at the resort and attempted to cool down. All the water was hot so it was hard to cool off. Luckily the resort had a pool so we took advantage and went for a little swim. To our dismay the pool was 96 degrees!! We just couldn't escape the heat!!
The next morning we made the decision to just leave the trailer there and go home. So we packed up as much as we could and ditched the trailer. It felt SO good to just be done with it all and head home.
After all was said and done we asked ourselves if it was worth it. The answer, No.