Willa Underwater

Ever since Willa's 2 weeks of swim lessons at the Water Whisperer, she has been swimming like a fish. She cannot get enough pool time. It is a little nerve wrecking because she has such confidence in her swimming skills, but she is still unable to stick her head out for breaths on her own. Regardless, it is amazing watching her swim on her own. 

Willa and her swim instructor, Eric. 

Willa's First Day of Preschool 09/09/13

Monday was Willa's first day of Preschool at Bel Air Presbyterian. She already loves school as I expected she would. 

Family Selfie

Our friends, Carol & Noemie 

I think we may have a teacher's pet. She was first in line holding one of the teacher's (Miss Caitlin) hands. 

The Past Couple of Weeks

Sorry its been a while since the last blog...Things have been busy around here with work, real estate classes and life! Here are some photos from the last couple of weeks (not in any order):

Poppy and Kiki came in town and adopted a little dog from the Seal Beach Animal Shelter. He is the sweetest, most gentle and calm dog. I think he will be the perfect pet for them :)

Willa loves lounging on the coffee table while watching her new favorite show, "Max and Ruby". 

I found two baby squirrels while I was out on a run- They had fallen out of their nest and were lying in the street. I immediately called Bryan to come with a box and towel, so we could all take them to the shelter to hopefully get rehabilitated. Willa fell in love with them and named them Cinnamon and Sprinkles. She's been talking about them a lot. 

Girls night out. Mommy, cousin Katelyn, Mallory and Willa at Buca di Beppo. Willa had fun and was being a goofball and keeping everyone laughing. 

We have spent a ton of time in the pool this summer. Almost everyday we'll go in- We are so lucky to have a pool in our backyard.

Willa at a play date at Fiona's house.

This photo was taken before Willa's swim lesson. I put her hair in her first ponytail so that her hair wouldn't get in her face during the lesson...she was so proud of the ponytail and kept saying "I can't wait to show Eric (her swim instructor) my ponytail!".

Playing with balloons at Penelope's birthday party.

A couple of times in the past couple of weeks, Willa has woken up in the middle of the night shrieking "THERE'S A SPIDER IN MY BED!" So she has ended up in our bed a couple of times...Daddy took this picture while we were still sleeping :)

Willa and Poppy had a great time together playing in the pool.

Poppy and Kiki's new dog! They named him Augustus "Gus" after Poppy's famous Great Great Uncle Edward Augustus Inglefield (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Augustus_Inglefield):

Here is a photo from Willa's swim lesson. She is doing a program called the Water Whisperer that supposedly teaches kids to swim in 2 weeks (5 days a week for 20 minutes each day). She has already made HUGE improvements in the water and has swam on her own a few feet at a time. 

This picture has a funny story. Willa starts school on Monday (eeeeeek!) and her teacher, Miss Caitlin came by the house to meet Willa. The teachers at Willa's preschool go to all of the incoming families homes to make the kids more comfortable with starting school. She took a picture of each kid in their home with "Mama Owl" (a stuffed owl that will be in the classroom). The pictures will then be hung in the classroom. Miss Caitlin had to take 7 pictures because Willa wouldn't stop doing her funny face. Bryan and I couldn't stop laughing but finally Willa stopped doing her goofy face for Caitlin to get a normal photo. We asked Miss Caitlin to send us one of the funny ones for our record. :)

When Miss Caitlin was about to leave our house, she said "Has anyone seen the owl?" because obviously she needed to take it with her. We look under the coffee table and Eddie had Mama Owl and was chewing her up. LOL. I'm not sure we made a great first impression!

Willa's First Camping Trip

We went camping at Lake Cachuma a couple of days ago. It seemed like a gamble taking a 2-1/2 year old camping, but we just took the plunge and did it...Lake Cachuma is less than 2 hours away from our house and was the perfect choice for Willa's first camping trip. She loved it! Our friends, Greg and Sara joined us too.

The minivan was jam packed (Eddie had the best seat in the house on top of the bedding)

The view of the lake and mountains. It was really beautiful.

Down by the lake. Willa and Eddie both sunk into some black mud and it looked like they were wearing black, slimy boots...not fun to clean up.

Our campsite was perfect. It was overlooking the lake and felt secluded. The site next to ours was a really nice, quiet family. 

Sara had the genius idea of bringing her fondue set and making fondue.

There was a perfect climbing tree on our campsite.

Yikes!

Jumping on Greg and Sara's air mattress like it was a trampoline.

Reading books.

I think the s'mores were Willa's favorite part of the trip :)

Sara and Willa reading before bedtime

Willa slept really well in the tent. Bryan, Willa, Eddie and I all squeezed onto a queen air mattress in our tent. She was so slap happy before bedtime (probably a sugar high from the s'mores), she kept getting into laughing fits reading books and making up stories...It was really funny. It got down to 53 degrees in the middle of the night, but with our down comforter and warm PJ's, we were okay. 

We all woke up really early and walked down to the lake for the last time. 

She really wanted to stay camping another night...she got really sad when we took down the tent. When we got home, she was crying saying "I want to go camping again!". Next time, we will go for two nights...

Willa and Daddy sleeping and holding hands on the drive home...