Redmond, Karen and Sadie's Planet: Our daughter is growing fins...

We've been wondering when we'd first start to have a real sense of what kind of hobbies and interests our daughter might grow into. We've known for some time that music was something she enjoyed- she's always singing and likes to fiddle with musical instruments, but over the summer, it's become clear that Sadie is strongly drawn to water and swimming. She is in her second round of swimming lessons, and she's already able to swim underwater and jump off the side of the pool without any assistance from us. Last night, she attempted to dive, but is just belly-flopping. I'm guessing that by the end of the summer, she'll be diving and beginning to do swimming strokes above water.

We've been going to our local pool at least 3-4 times a week, and also enjoy swimming in Jordan Lake, despite the fact that a youngster east of Raleigh was infected by some rare kind of flesh-eating bacteria in a lake over there and had to have a foot and his nose removed! Luckily, that's extremely rare and didn't happen in Jordan Lake, so I'm trying just not to think about that.

Redmond has been out of town this week at the national TSA conference with his kids, so I haven't had much time to do blog entries. His state pulled out funding for the kids at the last minute, so they scrambled to do some emergency fund-raising. Through posts on Facebook, we had a good deal of support from friends and family, and we thank everyone who contributed to the cause. Your generosity was incredible.

This Saturday (July 4th), we'll be heading to Vermont to see our family up there, so we should have a plethora of pictures and videos coming up...

Here are some pictures from Sadie's swimming class....

Ring around the Rosie... Gotta love a children's song based on the Bubonic Plague and the cremation of dead bodies... It's even worse than the lullaby about children falling out of trees in their cradles. Good grief...

The parents of one of Redmond's students invited us to a party at their mini-farm. They rescue farm animals in need and raise them on this farm. Sadie had so much fun petting goats and sheep and a very sweet horse. Here is the back of the house.

Another view of the home- it's a lovely farmhouse.

We spent a day at Jordan Lake. Sadie spent most of the time swimming underwater...

I just joined Weight Watchers about 4 weeks ago. This will be my official "before" picture. Good God. I'm only posting it because I am already about 15 pounds lighter (was 14.4 down last week and haven't weighed in this week), so it can only get better from here. I have a *long* way to go, and I'll just have to be patient and keep pushing.

We love the Saturday Farmer's Market in Carrboro, and a couple of weeks ago, we bought a pint of the hugest blackberries we've ever seen. They were as big as my thumb! They were also mega-juicy- you couldn't even touch one without getting "purple finger". Sadie REALLY likes berries, and this was the result. Notice her little boy Thomas pajamas. She still loves Thomas, and carries her little engines around and makes up little soap operas with them...