Summer Fun

I know, it's been long time since I've posted anything. All I can say is sorry! We have been relatively busy this summer. Most of our activities have been centered around gymnastics. M is now officially a member of our gym's competition team which means more practice time. She goes 4 days a week for 4 hours at a time. Yes, that is 16 hours a week! So far she is loving it. The extra hours doesn't seem to bother her at all. E is also taking gymnastics classes. She is on our teams pre-competition team and goes 2 days a week for a total of 4 hours (Unfortunately the practice times do not coincide so there 2 days a week I have kids at the gym for over 6 hours.) We had a rocky start with her at the beginning of summer with some very emotional times during class. She gets very "nervous" (those are her words) when she is put into new situations and I think that was what caused her to have breakdowns over little things. It finally took me almost threatening to take her out of gymnastics all together because I don't won't to pay all that money for her to cry during class (had to do this after she spent 45 minutes of crying and having to come out to me 2 times during one class). She responded by saying "NO" and quit crying and went right in and did well for the rest of the class that day. I guess in the long run she really does like it and didn't want to not participate because she has made a drastic change these last couple of weeks. She is no longer crying and is actually doing really well!

During our brief breaks from all the gymnastics, I try to do some fun things with the girls. Wednesdays are our only day where neither girl has any activities so that is the day we go off and do some kind of adventure. We've gone to the zoo, we've seen some movies with friends (UP, Night at the Museum and Ice Age 3), we've visited an animal park and we have some more fun planned for the rest of our summer. We also did a week of M learning her Chinese Duet dance the beginning of June. We've gone on a little vacation to the Biltmore House and the Smokey Mountains. So far our Summer has been fun! Below are a few photos of some of our summer fun.

The girls in front of the Biltmore House in Asheville, NC.

E at the Biltmore.

M at the Biltmore

M riding a horse all by herself for the first time. She loved it! She did this in the Smokey Mountains.

The girls in the Smokey Mountains

We visited the Wagon Trails Animal park and her the girls are feeding the animals in the petting zoo.

E ready for our "Safari Ride" through the animal park. We were able to feed all of the large animals in the park like elk, bison, water buffalo, camels, ostriches, zebras and many more.

M touching the antlers of this large elk.

During all of this fun summer activities, I haven't done much sewing so there are no new photos of any quilting projects. I haven't made any progress on my UFO list either. I spend most of my time being a chauffeur so I'm not home that often so that cuts into my sewing time.