Our mini vacation

We had a blast at our friend's farm. It was beautiful and relaxing. We swam in their pool, where Ivan learned that he can sit on the stairs and glide off face first in the water and doggy paddle to one of us in his floaty swim suit. It just amazes me how everytime I take him in the water he noticeably improves, but only when there are others around. I spend the whole time scooping him back up when he goes under, so I can't really swim or show him much. However, when he watches others swim, he imitates arm strokes, kicking or putting his face in! This time, his daddy was diving under the water, so Ivan thought he should too! He hasn't learned to spit water back out when he goes under though, or save breathing for when he is above water, so it's a pretty intense time taking him to the pool. I'm his full-time lifeguard, and he gets rescued often.

Brian and I read (I read a novel, first time since before I started all those crazy projects), watched a couple of movies, took Ivan on nature walks, confronted momma hens who were trying to sit on their unfertilized eggs, pet goats, checked on the deer, watered the dogs who had enough food for a month, and were awed by the beauty of cool mornings, stary nights, wild bunnies and frogs, butterflies, hummingbirds, tons of cardinals and crickets and a much needed change of scenery.

Ivan was generally very good. The first and second days, he was wonderful, exploring and having fun, but the 2nd night he didn't sleep well with sounds from a light rain, thunder and lightning disturbing him, then he was cranky and forcefully independent the next day, so we left a little earlier and got back to home sweet home.

I can't believe it, but we didn't take a single picture or video. I guess we even took a vacation from that, which was nice too. However, since we were out there the weekend before, we have a couple of videos from then. Hope you enjoy them.