The local community pool where we are staying is only about 200 yards away. So we have been there almost every day in the last two weeks. The days have been very hot so it has been really nice to have the pool so close by.

We have also visited some other pools in and around Denver. Last weekend we went out to visit Marcy’s good friend Valerie and her daughter Skyleah. Jude and Skyleah are only three months apart in age and they always enjoy playing together. We went to their local pool where Jude and Anna were introduced to diving boards. They had a small one-meter board at this pool and both kids just loved jumping off it.

Speaking of diving the very next day we had a food group (our regular dinner party get together) at Skyline, a swimming and tennis club in Denver. There they had a three meter diving board and both Jude and Anna just jumped off it without hesitation. By the end of the evening Jude was even jumping off backwards and doing twirls in the air.

Of course, it hasn’t all been pool time the last two weeks. In fact, Jude and Anna have picked up a new activity…rollerskating. Marcy bought the kids rollerskates and they have both been out in them several times. Jude has been very patient in learning how to do it but he also wants to know when he will be as good as Red – a character from the PBS show Super-Why who wears rollerskates. I told him about 100 practices and so after today he asked how many were left and he seemed unperturbed when I told him 96.

Jude has now completed his first illustrated novel. It is true. Jude loves water color painting and drawing and he has done quite a few paintings lately. Every painting tells a story in often intricate detail and so this this week Marcy decided to bind 11 of these pictures together into a book. Then Jude described exactly what was going on in each picture and Marcy wrote it down on the painting. His story is about wolves and antelopes. Here is Marcy reading it to him.

We have loved staying here at the Ferguson’s. It has been the perfect place for us to stay while we get ourselves organized after our six month trip to Sydney. While we have stayed here we have bought a new car, a 2010 Mazda CX-7 and we have signed a one year lease on a new house in Park Hill – about 4 blocks from our old place. The kids have loved having lots of new toys to play with and a huge backyard to run around which is what they did for about an hour after dinner this evening.