The swim lessons are 30 minutes a day Monday through Friday for two weeks. At first I was kind of ticked that I had to schlep all the way across town, grease Lily and myself up and stuff both of us in swim suits for 30 minutes. After the first day I was so glad it was only for 30 minutes and was happy to schlep, grease and stuff for two weeks.

Our class got pushed back a couple of weeks so by the time swim lessons started I was really looking forward to it. It was a great excuse to spend time with my sister and niece and play in the water a little. There were 5 or 6 kids in Lily’s class. Two of which were tiny 10 month old twin girls with some of the cutest bathing suits I had ever seen.

Day 1: (5 minutes late)
float on belly with Mama’s support – Aces

adding kicks to that – Aces

floating on back with Mama’s support – no go, but I get that, I can’t float on my back either.  None of the kids like it.

Blowing bubbles – Aces.  She didn’t blow any actual bubbles but she tried and I’m pretty sure she’s the only kiddo that even tried.

"Mom don't let go"

Day 2: stuff from Day 1 – Aces

Then they told us to do this weird pushing the baby under the water and toward the side – the first time, fine.  The second time – no go in a huge way.

The rest of the class time was spend crying and signing to nurse.  We got out of the pool after a few failed attempts to have fun again.

I got home and started thinking about being a swim class drop out. I didn’t go into this class expecting Lily to be a full fledged swimmer when we were done, I just wanted to have fun with my Girl and my Sister and Niece. This was so not fun.

Day 3:

After lots of thought I decided to give it one more try.  Waldo tagged along to see what it was all about.

Not much fun was had this day.  All the babies were crying, Lily just wanted to nurse.  Disaster.

On the drive home Waldo said he had a lot to say about the swim class and none of it was good.  He also said if I wanted to drop out he would totally back me on it because if it was him he would.

Day 4:

We took the day off from swim class and instead went swimming at my aunt’s house.  It was so nice and relaxing.  I did encourage Lily to blow bubbles, float and kick.  I also tried to get her to jump into the pool which I guess we missed on day 2 after we got out of the pool.    We had a great time and YAY! swimming was fun again.

Day 5:

I still really wanted to give up but Jolene texted me that day 4 had been a lot of fun for Olivia and we should keep coming and just do what we are comfortable with.  Which is exactly what we did.  We went back for the next few days and practiced all the fun floating/kicking/ bubble blowing stuff and by the last day Lily didn’t want to leave.

"Hey look I got it!"

I felt this was a huge success and swim class ended up being exactly what I wanted it to be. I don’t think the instructor liked me much or maybe she was a little intimidated with my Mama Bear impression because of the last day the kids all got certificates except Lily and Olivia.  Jolene asked Monica (instructor) about it and she said she still had to fill them out.  So Jolene went with her and a few minutes later handed me Lily’s.  I read it and laughed.  It said she hadn’t advanced to the next class, Jolene asked Monica why since Olivia did.  Monica said that Lily just wasn’t ready, I totally agree with that, but I think Monica was a little scared to give it to me herself, like I was going to be upset or something.

Starfish to starfish

I’m sure next year’s class will be much more useful, but I’m so glad we did it this year. Lily loves to swim and I feel more comfortable in the water with her.

Grandma Gail (my Mom) and Lily

Kick, kick, kick

Jolene and Olivia

More kicking

Snacks outside are the best

Lily and Grandma Rita

Sparkly eyes

I want to go in there

Hello

Happy girl

Cloth diapers FTW

These next few are some of my favorites of all times

Deep in thought

Oh Hi

I just love that smile

Trying to pick peaches (taken with my new phone)

Kitty approves too

Lily played with two of her little cousins, well she played near them and talked to them in some unknown language two or three times.

We're at the baby shower.

We went to the beach.  It was Lily’s first time.  It was magnificent.  And it was a little painful.  The beach has a lot of rocks on it and they killed my feet, but one look at the water splashing on the bigger rocks make up for it.

Lily didn’t hate the beach but she wasn’t sure what to do with it.  Maybe next time we go it will be warm enough to swim in, that might make her realize how fun it is.

Lily's first time at the ocean

I'm trying to explain why the ocean is so amazing. I think I failed to get my point across.

After we got tired of trying to impress Lily we went to the little play area.

Lily got to swing for the first time since her real first time last year and she was loved it.

"Oh this isn't too bad"

"Oh my, I'm going so fast, this is pretty darn cool"

"I LOVEEEEEEeee this"

Do you see the ocean through the fence. The playground is at the top of the beach.

We took her down the slide and then I had the crazy idea to see if she wanted to go into the tunnel that connect the two sides of the play thingy.  I was a little worried that she wouldn’t like it but she loved it.  She was a little sad when we wanted to go back to the swings.  But once she was swinging she didn’t care anymore.  Swinging is good stuff.

Bean, Lily Bean.

She loves these tunnels.

I think the best part of the whole trip was sitting up late into the night with Waldo’s brother, sister and their families.  Hanging out with our families and getting to know them is one of the biggest Pro on the list so it was really nice to really be experiencing it.

Lily's very first time on the swings. She was 8 months old.

I moved from my Dad’s house in Central California to Northwest Montana almost 14 years ago. I was “in love” and I had always hated my hometown so when I was asked to move to Montana by my then boyfriend I jumped at the chance. I grew up in the same town as almost all of my family and I was pretty close with most of them. We had holiday traditions and parties and someone to pick you up when you needed a ride; all that stuff that makes family so important and special. This same closeness can seem suffocating sometimes too. I was 20 years old and living on my own sounded good.

I loved Montana. I made a life there. I had some really great friends and knew all the good stores. I loved the mountains and trees. I loved looking at the snow, but I really hated being out in it. I knew how to drive in the snow like it was no big thing. When people asked me if I’d ever move back I told them that I’d never move back to California. Montana had cold winters but the summers are pretty darn nice. California is too hot. California has smog and graffiti. Montana has clean skies and walls (mostly).

A cute alley that was part of our almost nightly walk.

A street on our walking route.

After Lily was born I had moments of sadness that she wasn’t going to grow up knowing her grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins like I had but still didn’t want to go back to Cali for all the reasons I just listed and many more.

Then on May 1, 2010 we got some news from a family member that made us think long and hard about life. I believe the conversation went sort of like this**:

Waldo:  So this stuff is happening.

Me: Well, that’s something.  It’s at times like this that I hate being so far away.

W:…

M: !!!

W:???

M:…

A few days later

W: So…

M: Well I guess we’re moving back.

During the few days that it took for us to vocalize our decision we made a couple of pro/con lists and it was just about all that we talked about.  The only pro/con list that got written down was made that first day.  At the top of the pro side was FAMILY.  The pro side also had things like going to the zoo on it.  The con side was pretty short and lost out no  matter what because “family” was hard to beet now that we had Lily.

We had already been planning to drive to Cali for a vacation in mid June so we already had the money for the move put away.  Our lease was to renew in June so I was able to put in almost a full 30 day notice.  We both work for the same company and really didn’t look forward to getting new jobs.  We figured Waldo would be able to find something in the web development field just about anywhere as long as people were hiring.  But we doubted we’d be able to find me something comparable; I work a couple of hours a day from home for a good hourly wage on my own schedule, you can’t beat it. Since we both work at computers all day Waldo asked our boss if we could keep our jobs, we didn’t expect them to say yes but we figured it couldn’t hurt to ask. When Waldo’s text came through that they were going to let us keep our jobs I’m pretty sure I had to physically lift my jaw off the floor and then did a few happy-excited screams. Everything fell into place so easily it was like the move was meant to be (if you believe in that kind of stuff, and I do).

On May 24th our friends helped us load the U-haul with the last of our belongings and we left Montana.

All of our stuff.

We took 4 days to drive and it wasn’t too bad. Lily hates being in the car or her seat or not being held or all of it. We bought Lily a few new toys, I made her some snacks and we had some videos for her, this was our strategy for the drive. She played with the toys a little, ate some of the snacks, watched a few minutes of video (she doesn’t really watch tv and we packed the cord so we couldn’t recharge the netbook oops), but all she really wanted was to be held and nurse. Obviously we didn’t taker her out of her seat but her seat was facing the back so it was pretty easy for me to nurse her so we did that a lot. Luckily we didn’t get a tick for me not wearing a seatbelt and I’m pretty sure I didn’t flash anyone. We had all three of our cats in carriers (well one was in a cardboard box but that’s not important) in the car which we were towing. Thankfully we couldn’t hear them because two of the three hate being in cars and yell the whole time. We had to find motels that allowed pets and that was a little pain but doable. We were very glad to get to Waldo’s parents house.

At a reststop outside Dillon MT

Do you see the little foot?

To be continued…

**I guess I have blocked out that first conversation because I have no earthly idea who brought up moving back or how the whole thing really went. This was my best guess.

My sisters are twins, Jolene is 4 minutes older then Jody.  Jolene’s kids are Max (13) and Olivia (22 months).  Jody’s kids are Connor (7) and Brayden (5). Lily was almost 18 months in these pictures.

We printed this first one off for our Dad and Grandpa (Pop) for Father’s Day.

My sister is holding Lily up

Brayden

My little family

Jolene and her kids Max and Olivia

Jody and her boys Brayden and Connor

My sisters (Jody and Jolene) and me

Max getting a flower for the girls

Max on top of a pole and Connor at the bottom

Everyone

Me and my love

Olivia and a tired Lily

We were a little bummed that Waldo had to work and couldn’t go with us but we still had a great time. My Mom, Aunt Kk, Sister Jody, all of my nephews and my niece went to the Storyland play area in the morning and then Lily and I met up with them in the afternoon for a picnic.

After lunch we hopped on the Storyland train and rode it to get closer to the zoo entrance. I had no idea the train shortcut or heck the train at all existed, so I’m really glad that KK knew about it. It was so cute. We got to ride around the little lake, it was just so nice.

Once we got to the zoo entrance my Sister Jolene met up with us and then we started looking at the animals. First we stopped by the elephant exhibit. We could only see one but I think there’s at least two.

**I’m just going to warn you, we saw a lot of animal backsides so I have a lot of animal butt pictures.

After the elephants we saw the orangutans and some other kind of little primate.

Just as we were going to move on the little black primates started to make noise.

Yelling primates from Christy Wiggins on Vimeo.

They did this for about a half a hour. I was pretty sure they were setting a take over plan into motion. It was pretty neat.

We moved on to see some other great animals and their rear ends.

The kids had a great time.

Lily was having a bad teething/over stimulated day so she spent all day in the Ergo and was very happy about it.

Not all of the animals got the rear end notification and I got some pretty good shots.

We were beat so we headed back to the train and on the way we saw a cute little water play area for the little ones.

After a bit we got back on the train and headed home.

It was a great day and I can’t wait to go back.

This is the bottom right square of Lily special quilt. It says “Smell the flowers along the way…” and I really hope Lily takes that to heart. Stopping to enjoy the moment is so important and overlooked in our culture.

This is the middle right square of Lily’s special quilt. I believe Rita told me that all the grandkid’s quilts share a few features and this boy is one of them.

This is the upper right corner of Lily special quilt. Grandma Rita (Waldo’s Mom) made it for Lily. She makes one for each grandchild and they are amazing. Rita puts so much love into every little detail, you can feel the love pour off in waves as you try to take it all in.

This is the first in the quilt series. I’ll continue this on Tuesday and Thursday of the next couple of weeks.