This is one of the coolest places in our city. It's an old (10 story?) warehouse or something that has been changed into a huge children's (and adult's) museum. It's made up of amazing climbing structures that take you from floor to floor, giant slides that take you many stories down, one even goes from the top to the bottom in a winding slide, a circus performed by local kids who learn at the circus school there, and many other super cool things. You could spend a couple days there and probably not see everything.
We went with our new friend, Bella. She is the niece of a co-worker of Richard's. She spent a few days hanging out with us this summer because her aunt thought it would be more fun to play with us than sit at the office while she worked all day. She was right. We had fun with her.
Emma, Lauren, and Ellie all did swim team again this year. They have all improved a great deal and are becoming quite good swimmers. Emma's best and favorite stroke is back stroke. Lauren is best at freestyle and Ellie is becoming quite the "fly" girl winning several blue ribbons in this event. Butterfly is a stroke that many young swimmers shy away from. It requires a good deal of upper body strength and a mermaid kick. I'm sure the constant gymnastics and swimming with the mermaid flippers that went on this summer gave her a huge advantage in this event. On the last meet she wanted to "swim up" on the butterfly (compete against older kids because the round is a 50 meter instead of 25, adding more of a challenge), but her coach wouldn't let her because the team relies on her win in that event which brings the team score up. I think she was probably one of the best fly swimmers in her age group in the county. We didn't actually do the all-county meet, so I'm not sure, but she beat nearly everyone she swam against at the meets. Way to go, girls!
