Swimming and Barbecuing

... And another successfully planned day - hooray for us!  (I know, the rest of you probably never have these issues, but for us lately it's been a big deal to get stuff planned in advance for when Daddy's home... so please bear with the celebrating!)  I think some of the issue has been that when we were in school, the boys really needed the weekends to 'veg out' and have some 'down-time' at home.  Now that the pace of life (at least for the boys and me) has become so much gentler, we're all up for more trips etc when Daddy's home (good job he's up for it too!)  So it's still quite new for us, having weekends to plan instead of just having to recover from the week before, but it's important, as I shared in Keeping Weekends Special.  So as long as hubby gets chance to rest as well (which he did today - it being Father's Day and all that), having him here to join in playtime really makes the weekends special.
Anyway, back to our planned day: Daddy got a lie-in, and then when the boys really couldn't wait any longer, they jumped on him with cards and presents to open (including models of him that they'd made in craft club).  

Once everyone was up and dressed, we went to the local swimming pool.  We've been promising to take the boys swimming for well over a month now... DS3 in particular has regularly been getting the armbands out of the drawer and clutching them to himself hopefully (how could we resist?).  The problem with swimming trips is that I am not at all happy taking our boys on my own as two of them are non-swimmers - I really need hubby there to tag-team with, so our visits are restricted to weekends and holidays, and recently we've had illness and other issues that stopped us going, so this weekend I was determined we would somehow fit in a trip to the local pool!  All the boys love going there... DS1 was a slow-starter with regards to swimming, but after regular lessons through school, he now swims like the proverbial fish.  DS2 is more hesitant - if we don't go at least once a month he loses a lot of confidence (although I was pleased today that after an initial panic he got the hang of it again quite quickly, and swam a width wearing armbands.  He has swum unaided once before, but that was when we had been going every 2-3weeks.  He's regressed a bit since then, so it's high on my priority list to pick up the frequency of our swimming trips and build his confidence back up.  DS3 absolutely LOVES being in the water.  The first time we ever took him to the pool, we popped armbands on him, and he was off, floating about, and just naturally swimming without being taught (although it is a more vertical than horizontal affair... needs a bit of work!)  I think he'll take to swimming without armbands really well - and now we've started going again, we might even be able to come up with a plan for who gets to teach which boy!  Anyway, I was really glad that today, after weekends where we had to keep postponing, we finally made it happen!  I'm going to schedule it in on the calendar more often now, so we don't have to wait so long until next time!
This afternoon I went to visit my own dad (we saw hubby's dad last weekend as he lives quite a distacne away), and I enjoyed having a bit of 'grown-up time' while the boys had some time with Daddy, culminating with a barbecue in the garden once I was home again.  They loved watching Daddy light the barbecue - safely watching from through the patio doors as he does it with lighter fluid (or similar - am showing my ignorance here), and it makes some impressively high flames for a few minutes, and they were very happy to eat in the garden as it wasn't too cold today (hooray, maybe summer is on the way...?), and they especially loved toasting marshmallows and sandwiching them between digestive biscuits for 'pudding'.
So - that was one satisfying weekend.  I am already coming up with ideas for next weekend... watch this space to see if we can pull it off again!