July 4th

For Independence Day, Ella's school had a 4th of July celebration and a class party.  The kids made a craft and then had a little parade around the room. 

Ella was less than thrilled with the parade but liked making the fans and especially enjoyed the angel food cake with strawberries and blueberries. 

Telling a story

So proud of her patriotic shirt!

We went over to our friends' house for a barbecue on the actual 4th of July, and it was the first time we've been to their neighborhood pool. 

Ella and Jake spent a bunch of time in the kiddie pool and each went down the slide many, many times.

The most memorable part of the day was that Ella jumped off the diving board in the deep end of the big pool. The deep end is 10 feet and she saw other (bigger) kids jump off the diving board, and really had it set in her mind that she wanted to do it. Steve went up on the board with her and I was going to be in the water in case she got nervous when she landed in the water. She looked so little waiting in line with all the other kids and adults. She was wearing her vest but when it got to be her turn, the lifeguard told her she couldn't wear a vest. 


I thought for sure she wouldn't want to jump if she couldn't have her vest on, but she still wanted to. So I went out in the middle of the deep end under the board and treaded water, because I knew I needed to catch her, it was 10 feet and I didn't want her to sink on her first attempt off the diving board. Well, she jumped and did great (and I managed to successfully catch her)! She ended up doing it several more times. I was so proud of her, it took a lot of courage and she was proud of herself too.