Goldfish, Gators, Grout, Gi, Going Crazy, Art Camp & Getting a List

Canby Penguin....

Spencer ended his second swimming session today after two weeks of going every day. He is still a GOLDFISH and has not graduated up to the GOLDFISH II group yet, but he has made a lot of progress since he started a few months ago. He got his second little certificate, and it has the things he needs to concentrate on next, but he is progressing toward his goal of becoming a competient enough swimmier to be accepted in to the Canby Penguins.
http://www.ci.canby.or.us/Departments/swim/penguin.htm
This is like the Junior swim team of Canby. Then after a while in there he can maybe be a Canby Gator, which is like this hard core swim team of Canby,
http://www.canbygators.com/
and they compete all over the place. It is huge to be a Gator, but you have to be a Penguin first. To get to be a Penguin you have to be able to swim I think one entire lap and some other stuff. He is very determined and we intend to keep signing him up for lessons as long as he wants them he loves it and he cannot wait to get tot he pool every day. it has been a bit of a sacrifice for us because Monday thru Friday he HAS to be there at 12:30. That kind of breaks up our day, and he has to be there. I think its only for the summer and then when preschool starts again he can go back to twice a week at night. Anyway...

Canby Gators..

He also loves his Kinder Kempo class but he is not as enthusiastic about practicing it, and though he has had only one lesson he is not what you would call a NATURAL at it. However he has his GI ( Karate suit) now and we are ready to go. We have a lot to deal with packing for the move, and building the house and all the other stuff so we have not gotten around to gymnastics classes yet. We think that should wait to the fall. For now he has a lot. the Kempo, the swimming and next week on Monday - Fri starts the first of four week long Day Camps at his preschool. This one is CREATIVE ARTS camp. Though it is at his preschool it will be a different staff and different kids and we hope he makes new friends and has fun. He is doing four of them and though we are happy to do them its going to make for a crazy couple of weeks: MON - FRI he has the camp from 9 to 1, AND he needs to pack a lunch for that, BUT he has to leave the camp everyday at noon to get to swimming on time. Then Swimming at 12:30, M- F and THEN on TUESDAYS, it is time for KEMPO with SENSAI JENNY. Tuesdays are going to be INSANE but actually everyday is going to be a little nuts having to get to the preschool camp exactly at noon and get him into his suit and his goggles and all of the swimming stuff, and then off to the class... YIKES.

Today after swimming we also went to the house and Habib and his wife Dee were finishing the work. They have done a lot of tiling in places and its not all done but its enough for now so that we can move in. They have done an amazing job and though my pictures are reallllly bad here are some of the things so far:

This is the little desk area of the kitchen and the pantry next to it. That hole in the wall to the right is where the wall oven thing will go. Also no handles on cupboards yet.

This is the kooky flat rocks from Bali I picked for the tiny bathroom downstairs. I like how it looks so organic and weird. The rocks are really flat and smooth and it is a reallly small bathroom. Something like 15 or 20 Sq feet total. this is a bad picture but there are no lights in the house

This is the tile in the laundry room, which is also very small. We just used some leftover tile since it was so small. It came out really great looking actually. Of course this is another terrible phone camera picture...

Ok this is the livingroom and the naked stairs... but honestly, the wall color here is LAZY GREY However it looks more blue than grey but I still think it might look great when we have other stuff, like furniture, molding, floors, lights stuff like that.

Also: My very good friend Siri is a teacher, and she has the summers off. She has made a list of things like 33 things or something that she wants to do with her three year old son this sumer. I LOVED this idea and I am now creating my own list. Mine will be shorter, and I am planning to get some ideas from her list,since I am not from oregon and I do not know all of the things to do here. However I have at least started the list and I hope to do at least some of these things this summer with Spencer.

In no real order, here is my list:

1. Take a boat tour of Portland... Every time we go downtown Spencer sees the boats and wants to go on one. He loves seeing what he calls "the city" so this might be fun.
2. OMSI to see that Dinosaur thing... http://www.omsi.edu/
3. The Children's Museum http://www.portlandcm.org/
4. To our neighbor's Dairy Farm
5. To a movie... HOPEFULLY a GOOD Kids movie will come out soon. SO far I have not found one I want him to see...
6. This train thing that goes to some place I think near Mt Hood or something... have to research that one.... I think it is THIS: http://www.trainweb.org/oerhs/wst.htm
7. TO the coast, again but this time to Tillamook to see the lighthouse AND the Cheese factory
8. Maybe back to the aquarium on the coast, but we have already been there once this year
9. Tours of places to see how stuff is made.... he loves seeing this kind of thing, and I have no idea what is around here but we can figure out something like this to do as one of the things...

SO who knows? Maybe this is too ambitious for this summer when we have all that stuff going on, but I would like to do a FEW at least. Our life has been insane and we get so wrapped up in schedules and preschool and all of this, we sometimes forget that he is going to only be this age ONCE and we have so much fun we could be having with him.