End of July

Lincoln is learning to swim with the help of private lessons. We've learned a few things about swim lessons. First, we started him too soon. Lesson learned, and will be applied to the little ones. Second, private and frequent lessons help out a ton. Weekly lessons with multiple kids where he gets about 10 total minutes in the pool is just insufficient. He worked by himself with a new teacher today and Jenn said he was treading water and swimming across the pool. He'll be ready for the Animal Kingdom pool in October!

I got an iPhone not too long ago. I've been so hesitant to use it to it's full potential because I'm not crazy about paying much for data plans, but it's both fun socially (I like Foursquare and I just got on Instagram), I can now leave the Stone Age from a texting standpoint, I love the Map My Run app for running, and the thought of using it for a variety of helpful reasons when we're at Disney World was interesting. Only recently have I found out just how little data I use for what I enjoy, and my concern with consuming a bunch of data on it at Disney has been alleviated by learning that there is WiFi just about everywhere we'll be. Some areas of technology make me feel cutting edge, but smart phones and my extreme tardiness to the party make me feel outdated.

Anyway, here's my Instagram stuff...


You can follow me there as "rggates"

Lincoln's pretty good now with his bike.

The kids are becoming much more tolerant of longer walks as we prep them for Disney.

Henry, while playing with Lincoln and Lydia, bumped his head on the latch part of Lincoln's door.

Henry has also been showing a lot more interest in Duplos lately.
Lincoln's imaginative play is rubbing off on both Henry and Lydia, allowing them to play better together. This has been a welcome change for Jenn.