"Don't you want to have fun?"

Today we went to spend some time with some friends in a neighbourhood near campus. They very proactively gave us a tour of their home so we could see how nice it is (hoping that we'll perhaps come live near them). It was so lovely for the kids to get to play and enjoy each other while the grown ups commiserated over the hot weather. 

Rachel's friend Hailey is serving a mission in Manitoba right now and she mentioned that the weather is one thing that everyone is always willing to talk about. Our friend Tim mentioned a similar thing about when their family used to live in up in the northeastern US. He mentioned how when everyone was outside enjoying the summer weather it was with a note of...caution...mixed with gluttony—as if they had to hurry and enjoy every moment while it lasted because winter was always looming over their heads. 

Like, sure—we look happy now...but just you wait until winter gets here.

He described it like some monster lurking in the hills that everyone knows will descend and wreak havoc on their happy little community. 

And it is rather like that. 

Here it's the opposite and everyone we meet is apologizing for the fact that we had to move here in August. Blah. It's the worst...but we promise it's not always like this. It will soon get better. The beastly sun that is a stalking the land will be banished. 

November, I hear, is quite lovely. 

Anyway...

We went to the pool before bed this evening. It was 100°F (37°C), but the pool temperature was lovely. 

Benjamin tried out for a swim team run through the American school on Thursday and was put on the silver team. But we simply aren't ready for the level of commitment the team requires at this present moment. We're still just trying to get used to being here and we need to be looking for a permanent place to live (and then we'll have to move...again) and I just couldn't see doing that while also managing getting him to so many practices per week. 

The good news is there are plenty of pools here, and we bought a book of swim workouts for him before we left because we weren't really sure what sort of opportunities he'd have here for swimming. So we'll take advantage of the many pools and try to be dedicated and then...sign up for summer swim league in Utah next summer?

That's our plan for now.

It's a plan that doesn't kick my anxiety into high gear. And it will at least give us time to figure out what other options there are for extracurriculars out here. 

"You're a stroke and turn judge," Benjamin pointed out at the pool. "Judge me."

So he swam for me while I judged him and told him things like the fact that he needs to bring his heels to your bottom during recovering in breast stroke rather than basically doing a...plié...in the water. I see a lot of swimmers do this with their legs during breaststroke and it's not really a disqualifying offense...but it does make the kick less effective than it could otherwise be.

(See the explanation by Stephanie Rice at around 2:20)

We'll work on things on our own. It'll be fine! 

Phoebe, as we mentioned, recently decided she could swim backstroke, which is really cool. 

This evening she discovered the joy of head-butting. She swam from me to Andrew and instead of running into him with her arms extended she did a final pull down to her hips and bonked into him with her head instead. 

She found this very satisfying.

"Wow!" she said, coming up out of the water. "That was really fun! Did you like that, Dad? I really liked that!"

She backed up a bit and then swam towards him again. 

"Oof!" he said, over and over again as she swam into him, ramming him with her head. 

"This is great!" she said. 

She spent the entire evening swimming up to people (only in our family, thank goodness) and running into them with her head. 

At one point she was swimming up to me and I instinctively put my hands out to stop her from ramming her head into my stomach. She stood up very offended, grabbed my hands, moved them apart, and said sternly (while spluttering in more-than-chin-deep water), "Don't you want to have fun?"

I mean...yes? But not like this?

But apparently this is what we do for fun in the pool now.

We're going to have to come up with some other games pretty quick because I'm not sure how much "fun" the rest of us can handle while Phoebe gets her fill!