The Y

The weekend is almost here. Guess what that means. We will go to the pool, likely both days. And I will probably take more pictures.

I'm issuing a challenge to myself: Don't put pool pictures on the blog next week. Now. Let's see how I do.

Since next week has no bearing on today, I am about to share with you yet another set of pool pictures. But this is a different pool! One you haven't seen yet! We went to the YMCA pool with my cousin Lesley, her husband and their kids last weekend.

Lesley and I were very close growing up, considering that we didn't live in the same city and saw each other only on the occasional weekend and several times each Summer. We grew even closer when she was in college at Alabama and I was at Samford, and as adults have reached a whole new level in our friendship. We arrange for our families to get together as often as possible -- which still isn't as often as we'd like -- but with each of our kids only about 8 months apart, we always have a lot of fun.

Back to the Y: This pool has quite the reputation in our house, because it has slides! Two of them! One blue and one yellow! This is all very exciting and worthy of exaggerated punctuation marks if you are between the ages of 3 and 9!

As usual, we packed drinks and snacks in our trusty cooler and headed over to the pool to meet Branum:

George Emory:

And John Bart.

It's the South, you know, so sometimes even the boys have double names.

On the first pool break, we broke out the flavored water and snacks (We take bottled water and add Great Value -- Wal-Mart brand -- flavoring packets to it. For the ultra-curious, our favorite is cherry limeade.) It's delicious but does tend to temporarily stain the teeth.

One thing's for sure: you can't tell my kids need haircuts, can you?

SCRAGGLY.

While the kids spent some time jumping in the pool and swimming around, the Aforementioned Big Draw was the slide area.

We didn't think they'd let Jake do it since he can't swim yet, but he wanted to do it so badly that one of the guards said she'd catch him at the bottom. Winning!

They each must have gone down the slides 20 times. George Emory had never been to this pool before, and he had a great time.

Jake slid down so quickly that he lost his balance almost every time and came out crooked.

Did it diminish his enjoyment one iota?

NO IT DID NOT.

Nathaniel would fling himself down, trying to get as much speed as possible for each run.

His tactics worked quite well.

George E saw Nathaniel's technique and decided to test it out himself.

It worked well for him, too.

Nicholas wasn't about to be left behind.

Every time he popped out of the chute, he was paddling over to the side to jump back in line and figure out how to do it faster and with EVEN MORE FLAIR.

It was a terrific afternoon and one we hope to repeat soon ... we love those boys!