Changing Seasons

Yesterday Nadia's third soccer season came to an end. It was her last game playing on a U6 team. Paul's dad and my mom were with us. She didn't score any goals, but she had some excellent defensive plays. Nadia and Ian are both signed up to play soccer in the fall, and that season will start in about two months. After the soccer game we headed to the Gymnastics Showcase. Nadia participated in this event once before (2012) when she was in a preschool class. She has two weeks left of gymnastics, and then we'll be taking a two month break. After her class (Level 1) was done with their part of the program, we left because I had signed the kids up for a library summer reading program kick-off event at Betty's Ceramics at noon. Betty, who is 87 years old, gave us a tour of her store, demonstrated pouring a mold, showed us the kilns, etc. Then the children went outside, and each of them were given one small figurine to paint. Both of mine picked a bunny. Ian painted his brown (except for two small white dots for the eyes). Nadia painted the grass at the bottom green and painted the bunny purple, because purple is her second favorite color (followed closely behind pink, which is her most favorite color). 

We haven't regularly attended a library story program for more than a year, but I did sign the kids up for the summer reading programs at two libraries, and I am planning to take them to some of the events at each. At the one library the children receive one free book for every 10 hours that someone reads to them or they read themselves. If they have a limit on how many free books you can earn, I am thinking we'll hit that limit as on a normal day I read to the kids for at least an hour a day, and Nadia also independently reads for a bare minimum of 15 minutes a day. Lately she's been enjoying reading books from the Nate the Great series by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat and also the Mr. Putter & Tabby books by Cynthia Rylant. I'm almost done reading them The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. 

I thought we'd start swimming at the pool this weekend, but the pool opening has been delayed by one week due to rain interfering with their repainting the pool prior to filling it. We're looking forward to many trips to the pool, hopefully starting next weekend!