Sports

That pretty much sums up our weekend: lots of sports, and lots of outside time. Saturday was brisk and mostly sunny, and the day's mild temps gave way to a cold wind at night. Sunday was gorgeous. Warm, sun-drenched, and featuring a slight breeze that threatened to gust at times, but which never did...surely Mother Nature saw fit to grant us one sparkling day after a winter of much discontent.

Saturday began as all Saturdays have for the past couple years: a trip to the YMCA for swimming lessons. Celia is in the class for the youngest swimmers, which means she requires either Natalia or me to accompany her in the frigid waters. Natalia went in this week, so while she was playing games and singing with Celia's class, I could relax and watch Andres as he swam with the bigger kids.

My little guy is becoming quite the swimmer. He's able to swim the length of the pool (he was wearing a couple of bubbles on his back--he's not Michael Phelps yet), and he can even swim backwards for a bit. He also jumps into the water more readily than he used to. His class consists of a lot of repetition--kicking, reaching, blowing bubbles--and a fair amount of games, which he thoroughly enjoys.

This past Saturday we were surprised to learn that Andres was actually being promoted a class! He can apparently do everything that a full-fledged Ray can do...so goodbye Rays, and hello Eels. Quite a moment for all of us. I don't think Andres will notice much of a difference in the classes (though not all kids in his current class are moving up), but Natalia and I each had to look at the small "diploma" a couple of times before we fully believed that our guy was moving up a level. It seems like only a few months ago he and I were where Celia and Natalia were that morning, paired up in a class with a lot of singing and only a little bit of swimming. He has clearly learned his lessons well! Congrats to him.

The Revs were playing at home on Saturday night, so we figured we would head on down and take in our first family game of the season. Accompanying us was our recently-engaged friend Buzz ("frisbee Buzz", not "Buzz Lightyear to the rescue Buzz" according to Andres). Since the day had been warm, we figured that the evening would follow suit...which was a mistake. The stadium was cold, the Revolution played horribly, and we left a few minutes before the final whistle signaled a depressing 2-0 defeat to Real Salt Lake.

He forgot his drums, but not his smile.

Everybody slept in (relatively speaking) on Sunday. Andres even managed to go the whole night without waking up and shuffling into our room, a welcome change from our usual routine. Natalia headed to Zumba and after a quick breakfast I took the kids outside. Sean and Jasmine were already out (no doubt tending Coco and Snowflake), and a sidewalk chalk party ensued. Celia's attention was split between the chalk and her brother's Harley-themed big wheels; Andres did an admirable job of  helping her learn how to ride it.

Unlicensed drivers often need the most help.

Nana and Papa came over for a visit too. Andres wanted to show off his baseball skills, so we headed across the street, bat and ball in hand, for some batting practice. Batting lefty, Andres wore out Papa's arm in short order. He then proceeded to spray Nana's pitches all over the park with an assortment of line drives and fly balls. (Though, to be fair, there were a number of swings and misses too.) I think it's interesting that his default batting stance is from the left side of the plate--when he was younger, he would switch back and forth between left and right, but the past few times we have played, it's been all lefty.

Hopefully more Papi than JD.

Definitely more Papi than JD!

Everyone was hungry from the morning's activities. We took a break and had lunch on the back deck, the first time we have eaten out there this year. It felt like summer.

Soon we had returned to the front and basketball had replaced baseball as the sport of choice. Sean reappeared, and Andres looked on in awe as his neighbor did windmill dunk after windmill dunk. Andres tried to repeat the feat but, try as he might, he could not quite jump high enough to do a full-fledged slam.

Just like the Celtics: the help defense didn't rotate, and Sean got an easy 2.

A little man trying to play a big man's game.

Celia had no problems with this whatsoever--though she was helped along by some performance-enhancing relatives.

Dunking is easy when you don't need to jump.