Swimming Lessons

The girls took swimming lessons for a few weeks this summer. Last year I put Rease in lessons at our local pool and I didn't feel like she learned anything at all - I was disappointed that she couldn't swim especially after 4 weeks of lessons. So my neighbor recommended that my girls take lessons with her daughter at the same place she did last year. It's a family friend of hers and is taught at her home in her personal pool. We decided to give it a try and boy are we happy we did. The girls loved it and the lessons were excellent! They can actually swim now after 2 sessions of lessons! I took my camera one day and snapped a couple pictures of these girls in action.

So everyday it was a big decision which goggles they would wear for the day. There was a whole basketful so it always took a couple minutes for them to decide which ones they liked. I also started putting swim caps on them so that I didn't have to wash their hair every day. Lessons went for 2 weeks at a time so washing hair every day for 2 weeks started to get old. Plus wearing the swim caps helped keep their goggles on a lot better and they liked that.

Waiting for their class to start.
Their teachers are the grandkids of the lady who owns the house and they are high school/college swimmers so they really know their stuff. I was impressed with the way they taught the kids to swim - always keeping faces in the water while swimming and lifting their head to breathe only.

Rhen is a little fish. She was so excited to be in the water and was great at doing what they taught her. For the first session, her and Rease were in the same class then they were in separate classes for the last 2 weeks. It worked out really good because Rhen was in a 3 year old class the second time and they got a little bit more one on one attention and training. She did awesome.

Rease was amazing. She was one of the best in her class and was fearless in the water. She now says she never wants to go swimming without her life jacket. Now that it's all over the girls can jump off the diving board and swim to the other side of the pool (all on their own!), float on their backs, swim the breast stroke (who knows when they will use it, but it's impressive that they know it) side breathe, dive for rings and most importantly to me, they feel comfortable enough in the water to not be scared of swimming on their own.

Rhen and Liev had fun playing while we waited for Rease's class to get over and Rhen's to start. We had a great experience this year and will definitely go back next year for more!