Moving

After we came back from AL and TN, we had a week to pack before we moved about a mile across town to our new apartment. It is indeed smaller than our last place, but we are enjoying being able to walk right out the back door and into the grass, using the washer and dryer any time we please, and easy in-out from the car - definitely a good move! In the move, I found a stack of stuffed and stamped Christmas cards that I never sent. So, as soon as I print-up some "we've moved" stickers with our new address, I will send those out. Who won't get a smile at getting a Christmas card 9 months late?
More than the grass and the washing machine, we are enjoying the pool here. Owen has become a real swimmer. We go almost every day for about an hour, and he is swimming short distances across the surface as well as diving down to get stuff from the bottom. Just today, he figured out how to swim down on his own rather than shimmying down our legs or the handle bar at the steps.
Swimming is one of the few things I really feel like my children NEED to learn to do and which I would go to some length to ensure that they do learn. I'm more concerned about swimming than reading! If Owen really doesn't want to learn to read, well, that's up to him (though he is actually very interested right now). I'm a bit surprised at how readily he has taken to the water and how driven he seems to gain new skills in the water. Every day he seems to think up some new thing and practice it relentlessly - treading water, jumping in while doing 1/2 and full turns, getting things from the bottom, swimming to the bottom from the surface, jumping in and swimming back to the steps on his own.
It's really nice to see him enjoy himself so much and to have him WORN OUT after a good long swim.