It’s Saturday and today is a family day for us. Dominica and the girls are going to be heading down to Florida one week from today and I am going to really be missing them so this weekend is set aside for just spending time together. I did manage to get myself scheduled to be in the office next Saturday so that I can work while the family is gone in exchange for a comp day sometime when they are back home. That is way better. It is almost like shortening their trip by one day, sort of.
This morning we got up and took a walk up the hill and went to the playground. The girls had fun but were upset, especially Liesl, that they could not go swimming this morning. The playground is right against the swimming pool and the pool was busy and full of kids and the girls wanted to join them. So we didn’t spend as much time on the playground as we might have. While we were there, though, we stopped by the recreation center and got our IDs made for us so that we will be able to use the pool as well as the gym in the future. It is truly amazing that we have lived here for nearly six years (we moved in a few months before Liesl was born) and never once have used or even visited these facilities. We have all of the amenities as if we lived in an apartment complex but have never taken advantage of it.
We relaxed at the house for a little while but in the middle of the afternoon we packed the girls up again and went back up the hill. This time we took the small stroller and Luciana rode and I pushed while Dominica and Liesl walked up to the swimming pool. There were not many people there tonight. It is still early in the year for swimming and late in the day as well. We started off in the kiddie pool which is a small square and uniformly eighteen inches deep. So shallow that the girls do not need floatation devices. It was very cold, though. But they had fun. Dominica and I avoided getting in.
I took my Kindle with me up to the pool and spent most of the time, when I wasn’t keeping an eye on the girls, continuing to read “A House Like a Lotus.” I am probably halfway through it now. I get very little time to read in print.
They were not long in the little pool when they both decided that they wanted to go to the big pool. We thought that this would not be any fun for them because there were extra people and they would have to wear flotation devices but they insisted. It turned out that the big pool was heated, but not the little one. So it was actually quite a bit nicer. And, as luck would have it, about the only people that we know in our entire complex were the people who were in the pool! It was our local girlscout’s family, the one from whom we buy cookies and who thought that Liesl and Luciana were so sweet that she had offered to come help Dominica with them over the summer (this is a month ago or so that she had offered.) She and her little brother were in the pool so Liesl already knew her and was very comfortable and she was very excited to get to play with the girls. Liesl and her new friends had a lot of fun. Dominica went over and sat with their mother and they talked for a long time. It turns out that we are neighbours. Not next door to each other but close enough that we can see each other from the front windows.
The girls were very glad that we went swimming today, they had a really good time and Liesl is really getting good and being in the pool. She is able to swim around and make her way, slowly, around the pool. Lots of great exercise for her.