2024 Summer Activities

This summer may have been the busiest one yet! Between our extensive therapy schedule for Aria and Sam, we crammed in as many activities as we could. Everyone was constantly running in different directions. I'd be dropping one child off then running to pickup another.  It was definitely a summer full of chauffeuring.

Our activities started off with another season of adaptive T-ball with Kid's Abilities, a local therapy clinic. Cole has been playing since he was just a wee little one. This year, Cole, Aria and Sam all played on the same team. Popi Dave was Cole's helper, I was Aria's, and Shane was Sam's, although Uncle Jason had to substitute for a couple games when Shane was out of town. 

We had a blast at our "T-ball Tuesdays". Cole is one of the older kids now, smashing the ball out of the park and snatching the ball when playing in the field. 

Cole made sure to include his little siblings whenever he could. Rather than toss the ball to the pitcher, he would be sure to hand it off to either Aria or Sam so that they could throw the ball too. He's such a great big brother.

 

This was Sam's very first experience with T-ball. He enjoyed the game, but may have preferred playing with Uncle Jason's hat just a bit more. 

The kids all had a great time running the bases and throwing the balls and are looking forward to next season.

Rose and Kate participated in a golf class at the North Oaks Golf Club. They practiced their swings and improved upon their techniques. While the class was just one week long, they spent many a day on the golf course with Shane. Although Owen didn't take any golf lessons this summer, he was out on the course often. 

Cole, Rose and Kate spent several weeks swimming at Foss Swim School. They worked hard to improve their swimming skills. Rose officially graduated from Foss's Learn to Swim class. What a big accomplishment! Sadly I wasn't able to make it to any of her lessons as she wrapped it all up in just two weeks. Kate and Cole spent four weeks swimming. They continue to gain more and more skills making great strides towards becoming independent swimmers.

Owen, Rose and Kate all spent time on White Bear Lake sailing. Rose and Kate were in the same beginner class and got to be ship mates. 

This was Rose's second year and Kate's first year sailing. Kate is definitely our more cautious child and after begging to sail this summer, she only ended up partaking in one session, opting instead to focus on her swimming skills. While she enjoyed sailing, she was quite nervous to tip the sailboat. I don't blame her as it looks quite scary. But learning how to recover from a tipped sailboat is one of the requirements to pass the class. And with high winds, you just never know when your boat may end up tipping over, just like on the day I was watching them sail. The winds almost knocked them right over, but thankfully they recovered although my heart was quite rattled watching from the shore.

Owen has been sailing for years and loves his time out on the lake. This year due to scheduling conflicts, one of the sailing sessions that he ended up taking was a "Learn to Race" class. His first race ended up being on a very cold, wet, rainy day with high winds. Unfortunately, his sailboat tipped and the boom hit him in the head not once, but twice. He was rather shaken up after that. But thankfully he got back on the sailboat the next day, opting to continue sailing for leisure with no race plans in the future. 

Overall, we had a great summer and the kids got to enjoy what they love before heading back to the grind of another school year.