Oakley's last "Mom and me" swim lessons 2013

The "Mom and Me" class is the last one that they do.  I think they are hoping that it will be warm enough for the little ones but it never seemed to fail that the wind would pick up at that time!  I guess that's what happens when you build an outdoor swimming pool at the mouth of a canyon.

Oakley had some time to burn and loved playing on the giant stadium stairs at the lap pool.  He pretended that the railing was a machine gun.  Yeah, he's a boy.

He wasn't sure about swim lessons at first, which is strange because the few times we had gone swimming he hadn't really wanted me to hang on to him but in this setting he was clinging on to me for dear life!  I finally figured out that if we did the things that they taught us for a few minutes then let him have some free time he was much more willing to do what ever I wanted him to do.  He was going underwater to get rings and even swimming for short distances underwater.  His strokes were very "dog" like but at least he was doing it!

It was extra fun because he got to do it at the same time at Benji!  They had so much fun together and bonded a lot.  They are pretty good buds now, not that they weren't before, but they're even closer now.  It was also nice for me to have Rachel to chat with while the boys played. :)

Owen's swim lessons 2013

I was less than pleased with Owen's swim experience this year.  I told the lady that is in charge AND his swim teacher that he was repeating the same class last year that he passed and to please, if needed, let him go to the next level.  Well his class was ridiculously crowded with 8 kids.  It seemed as though half of the kids were about on the same level as he was on and the other half of the kids were still afraid to even get into the water!!  

The day I took pictures, I kept getting more and more frustrated.  Morgan had been able to swim four different types of strokes in the time that Owen had swam one!  He mostly sat by the side of the pool waiting for the rest of the class to catch up to him, and he wasn't the first to leave.  I didn't pay money for my son to wait for other kids to catch up.  I expressed my concerns to the lady in charge and she said that she would observe his class.  

The next day she deliberately ignored me but I am persistent and I finally talked to her.  She told me that she didn't see a problem.  I told her that I felt that half of the class was preventing the other half from learning.  I told her that they were using the kick board every time and not even learning how to use their arms.  I told her that he had already passed this class I just had him repeat it because we hadn't gone swimming much.  She told me that she could have the level five teacher test him the next day.

The next day the level five teacher, which was also the class Morgan was in, tested him and said that he should have been in her class the whole time.  She also said that he is ready for swim team!  There were still a few things he needed to work on but with the couple of days she had with him he improved a ton!  I'm glad I spoke up!