A Weekend to Make Bubba Gump Proud...Shrimp Swim Class and Garlic Shrimp

We kicked off a wonderful rainy weekend with Niko's last Shrimp swim class. Grammy and Pop-Pop joined us and I flouted the rules and had Grammy get in the pool with us. Ha! The pictures aren't the best quality since my dad was taking them through the viewing window but I thought I would share them anyway.

I think this one was taken during the Wheels on the Bus. Nikos is laughing because he loves the song and my mom and I are laughing because the Berkeley lyrics. Instead of the babies on the bus crying "waah waah waah" the babies on the bus laugh "Ah ha ha, ah ha ha!" In addition, the parents in Berkeley would never "shh shh shh" their kids on the bus so the parents say "I love you, I love you." Hee hee! Since this is our second round of swim classes I had gotten used to the lyrics, my mom on the other hand had to be quickly corrected when she had the children on the bus crying.


Here's my mom and Nikos during the Hokey Pokey. I made her do all the heavy lifting.

Sunday found us at the End-of-Summer Rib (and Shrimp) Party at the Kienzle Family Clubhouse. Attendees included the Roberts Five, the Romios family + Grandma Linda as well as special guests Gai, Christian and Brayden. I know, I know, November 2nd is hardly the end of summer...I think my dad was going by the Australian seasons or something. I guess when you have 2 kids, 4 grandkids and multiple vacations its hard to find a free weekend.

Here's a cute picture of Kira as she is about to start off on her wounded man army crawl. I would also like to title this picture - Look at this cute outfit that Baby Romios #2 will be wearing next year!


The Kienzle Family Clubhouse makes great use of its abundant outdoor space. Although there recently have been some aesthetic changes to the Spooky Forest...all changes have been approved by Maile.

Nikos and Maile enjoy the sand feature of the Clubhouse. Here they learn hand-to-eye coordination as well as sharing.


As evidenced by the shovel full of sand that Nikos just dumped on his own head, Nikos is still working on the coordination aspect.


Busy at the outdoor art feature, Mason water paints some rocks. (In case you hadn't guessed, Taki and I have had a few preschool tours lately and I am picking up the lingo...)


After enjoying dinner al fresco, the kids enjoyed music time with guest teacher Miss Gail. (This followed geography and science time where the tag team of Miss Melanie and jr. teacher Miss Maile taught the kids about Mt. Everest, food chains and flying cranes. We won't mention the failed teachings of Mr. Taki - which involved telling the kids that the crane was a stork and that Ross Webber was a paleontologist. In the interest of full disclosure, he did have the job correct for Ross, Miss Gail just had to correct him that his last name was Gellar. And he was correcting Miss Heather when I told the kids that Indiana Jones was an paleontologist. Damn! Of course, lest you think Miss Gail is little-miss-perfect, the her music time involved the beat to Baby Got Back or something of that vein.

Mason, Kira, Brayden and Nikos.


Kira and Brayden pose for a picture.