First Week out of School

Wow, the first week of summer is already over, scary! We started with a wonderful Memorial Day, with part of the time at Josh' parents house, with hotdogs, and swimming. Jasper had no fear and went down the slide many many times, even when no one was there to catch him. Ofcourse, I am like a hawk kepping my eye on him at all times, and if I don't see that bright orange swimsuit of his for a second, I get a heart attack (many), so he was fine. Definitely time to get him to learn to swim!
 On Tuesday, the girls started Pirates again, the summer swimteam. They swim for 1 hour every day, Monday-Thursday, and have a weekly swim meet. They started right where they had left off last year, and love it again. The swim meets last about 4 hours, during which they do 2 individual events, and 2 relays (medley and free style). Lilian chose breast and fly for her individual stroke, and Sofia chose breast and free. They both had a good time, and did their best. I am so proud of them that they both are competetive enough to do their best and to ask how they placed, but have enough sportsmanship that they can handle it when they don't win. Lilian weas last in several occasions, and I could see that she was disappointed, which made me feel so sorry for her. However, she told me she was fine and was not upset. So, I gave up on being sad for her if she wasn't sad for herself! Lilian was her sweet self, though it was not the best choice at the time: on her leg of the freestyle relay, she saw a pair of goggles on the bottom of the pool floor, and she decided to dive them up off the bottom during her leg! It was sweet, but ofcourse very unexpected. Her team was in last place, so it didn't make a difference inn the end. It was actually really funny, and made me realize how sweet and concerned she always is about others, so I was actually very proud of her sweet Spirit.

Jasper and Espen got to watch all of it in the heat, and Josh was there as well, so the girls felt very supported. It is so wonderful to be able to do all theese things as a family, and I am still celebrating every day that Josh chose this special family time over his 'career' and income.

My beautiful family!

My sweeeeeeeet Knorretje (Espen)

Silly Lily

Funny Fietje!

Sofia ready to go!

Lilian ready to go!

On Friday, I finally got my roadbike off the wall, after it had been hanging there for a total of 10 years (Chicahgo and here), cleaned it off, bought some new tires and tubes (mine came apart when I tried to patch the tubes), and got it ready to go for a ride with a bike group on Saturday morning. Josh took care of the kids while I went for a 30+ mile ride with this group. It was so much fun to ride on the roadbike again, it is so much faster than a mountain bike, and my legs were still working it. Yeah! We are going to try to continue doing this, trading off every week, such that Josh got himself a roadbike too. We used to do this a lot together when we lived in utah (on mountainbikes) and we loved biking together, especially on slick rock in Moab. I am looking forward to some rides together agian someday.


The girls are going to sign up for a mini triathlon next Saturday, 6/11. so that will be exciting to see. We will all be there again cheering! GOooooo girls! :)