Swimming

The one thing that makes the summer heat bearable is swimming every day. We spend from about 5 pm - 8 pm at the pool, sometimes a little less, depending on morale. Isak, Elina and Anja are taking swim lessons for 35 minutes every evening for a month. Isak and Elina are just doing stroke improvement and learning how to dive. But it is Anja's first time taking lessons, so she is practicing kicking, arm movements, blowing bubbles, back floating and such. Julia is not taking lessons. She has proved to be of the same kind that her brother was - a complete FISH in the water. Give her some water wings and, voila, she goes. And to think I kept her from the pool for 6 weeks for fear of having two non swimmers with me. Julia swam by herself the SECOND day she was in the pool. Last summer she barely got to swim because she would just run into the pool if given half a chance. I think she went swimming a handful of times last year. But this year she is so much easier to have in the pool than Anja. She still tries to jump in, but if she were to actually do it, she'd be okay this year.

The picture and film clip were taken after Anja and Mark went home. Anja complained that she was - wait for it - COLD! So she went with Mark. Heaven help her when we finally get to spend a full summer in Sweden. She'll remain on land all summer, I fear.