Dead Fish Anyone??

This summer we put both Elise and Zac in swim lessons (Thomas was too short...by about 3 inches). Zac, (as I mentioned in an earlier post) has started to overcome his fear of water this summer. We thought that we had better jump on this opportunity to get him in the pool with these AWESOME instructors. Elise had them last year and she LOVED them! As for the "dead fish", the pool is on the canal and for the first week of lessons there were a few dead fish in water by the boat ramps. This was SO exciting that Thomas would wake up in the morning just beaming saying "we're going to see the DEAD FISH!". I admit that they were pretty gross to look at...especially by day 5! But, it got the kids up and moving out the door a lot faster if they new that we could try to see the dead fish before lessons.
Well the first few days the weather was a little chilly (did I mention it's an outdoor pool?). Once the weather warmed up the kids were in full swing and having a blast in the water. I didn't take too many pictures but here is Zac (with the red noodles) swimming around. The first session he had a bunch of little boys in his class with him...actually another named Zac. He came home one day and said "Mom! there's ANOTHER Zac Rhodenizer in my class!". I had to explain that there was another Zac but not another Rhodenizer.
He had a lot of fun and the instructors seemed to know how to handle him just right so he would cooperate.

Here is Elise going down the water slide with her favorite teacher "Mr. Nick". I'm sad that we didn't get a close up picture of her with her teachers (Thomas was running to the playground by himself at this point so I needed to snap a quick picture and run after him). She did very well this year. She passed level one and had a lot of fun in level 2. Now she is swimming under water and doing cannon balls without a life jacket!

Here is Zac with his FAVORITE teacher, "Miss Frankie". He thought all the male instructors were pretty cool but he would try ANYTHING if Miss Frankie asked him. They would both light up those beautiful smiles as soon as they saw each other everyday...and on the last day Miss Frankie asked if Zac could wait and get a picture with her. This is how Zac looked every time he was with her...

I sure hope that we can squeeze in one more session of lessons next summer before we leave (and put Thomas in as well). This is one part of Michigan that we will REALLY miss!