They Passed!!

The past two weeks have been very busy with swimming lessons (at 8:00 a.m-EEK) followed by band lessons for Trevor.  Despite the business, we found two days that were open enough to spend half the day at the pool.  It helped us manage the "dog days of summer" as well as getting more practice for Emily.  Erin has had no fear of water (other than a stage as a baby!) and has flown right through lessons since 3 yrs old.  Emily, however, has been a LOT more cautious.  Spending three years in the Minnows class has not bothered her in the least - and was actually fine with not passing this year....at first.  But Tuesday was our RED LETTER DAY....Emily managed to go off the diving board w/o a noodle after passing the swimming portion of her test by doing the front crawl into the deep end!!  Now, it took several minutes standing at the end of the board, Erin on one side and Trevor on the other just coaxing her through it as well as her (pregnant) swimming instructor getting into the water "just in case" per Emily's request.  The poor thing was shaking SOOOO bad but SHE.DID.IT!!!  And to top that off, she jumped right off today....and is planning on taking her deep end test tomorrow at our city pool!!  Emily has just proven that "BRAVERY" doesn't mean having no fear....it is pushing forward despite that fear.  I was just so proud of her b/c of that. 
Trevor has passed out of his class so next year he will be taking a lifeguarding class.  Erin has passed out of her class (Level III) and moves on up to level IV.  Emily made so much progress this year and is very worthy of her move up to the Sharks class for next year. 

Trevor also started practice with our Community Band on Monday night after his 6th grade band instructor had called to ask him to join.  The band is made up of 80% adults so it goes without saying that the music is a lot more difficult than what he has been used to.  Thought the rest of us think he would be good with the challenge he is struggling with it.