nashville #3

We spent a long week in Nashville this past week, our third trip down since Ryan's been working down there for the last four months. It was a long, hot week with record temps and lots of spotty thunderstorms. We were cooped up in a teeny two bedroom un-kid-friendly apartment; trying not to spend much money on indoor entertainment and like I said it was either too hot to be outside or thundering and downpouring, so cooped up we were. But it was so nice to be together as a normal family where daddy actually comes home after work each day! We were a normal family for 10 whole days; sharing an apartment with Scott -afore mentioned cohort- all week, and our family of four sharing one bedroom, but a normalish family nonetheless.

Their little apartment complex does have a swimming pool so, dodging lightning and downpours, we managed a fair amount of time in the pool.
AND the kids introduced themselves to The Deep End.
It's a smallish pool, going very quickly from 3 feet to 9 feet deep. 3 feet though, apparently, measures quite differently from St Louis to Nashville as at home here, Sawyer can easily walk around the 3 feet area of our pool for a good five feet out from the steps on the whole shallow end. Down there, he wasn't even close to being able to touch anywhere off the steps. So he got a workout; swimming, bobbing and treading water most all the time rather than so much of the playing he's used to doing at our pool. It was really good for them though.
At one point on the first evening in the pool, I casually mentioned to Savannah that she should go try jumping in the deep end, never in a million years thinking she'd actually do it. But she threw me a cheery, "okay!" without even skipping a beat, climbed on out of the pool, walked over to the 9 foot mark and jumped on in a swam back to the wall. Wow!
Then on her own incentive she decided she wanted to try swimming all the way across down there. And again, without skipping a beat or breaking a sweat, she went from wall to wall. Wow!
And then Sawyer followed suite.
And then they couldn't get enough of The Deep End. Jumping in, swimming around, racing each other across, swimming the length of the pool just cuz they can and trying, trying trying to dive down and reach the bottom.
They were so proud of themselves... hanging out in The Deep End!
I was proud too. Impressed and proud. I don't think I was hanging out in The Deep End when I was four or seven!

Folks, we have legitimate swimmers on our hands!