Swimming, Turtles & Ice Cream

Weird title, I know. Just bare with me & you'll understand.

We just finished our first week of swimming lessons at Metroplex near our house.

We are taking M-Th with Cobb & Charly's friends Keeten & Bella Levin. Here's Charly & Bella after a successful first day:

Both Cobb & Charly are doing great, but there is a little fear factor going on with Charly. She had a great time on day 1 and 2, but yesterday she got a little scared & shed tears. Last night she came down after she was supposed to be asleep. She started crying telling her daddy that she didn't want to go to swimming again. But alas, her parents are mean, and we made her face her fear by going back again today. It was much better & we planned to go to Paciugo for ice cream to celebrate her bravery.

First we had to drop Bennett of at his house, and on the way, we almost ran over a little turtle! And yes, I stopped the car, got out, and put the turtle in our car. Who can pass up on letting the kids play with a turtle?? He was cute, and we named him Fred.

At Bennett's house, we tried to feed the turtle Spinach. . .

Then we all piled into the car (Stacey, Dayton, Bennett, Cobb, Charly, Ridge, & me) to take Fred back to his home. . .the pond. The kids enjoyed watching the turtle & talking to it.

Here Ridge & Charly are trying to convince Fred to go into the pond. . .

Finally, he went the other way & hid in some bushes. It was a great opportunity to talk about God's creativity. God created this little turtle with a shell to protect himself. Cobb pointed out that God gave us a house to protect us. And we talked about the markings on the shell and how it blends into the dirt so that the turtle can hide from things that might want to hurt it. It was a fun and unexpected adventure.

But the ice cream was not forgotten! After cleaning out hands with wipes & santizer, we headed to Paciugo. Ridge got Mint Chocolate Chip:

Charly got Vanilla & Chocolate:

And Cobb indulged with Chocolate & Rasberry. Charly told him his face was red. He kept wiping his face & asking if he had gotten the red off. I finally had to take this picture to show him what his face looked like.

Fun times.