Brielle's 1st time as a Tadpole

Brielle participated in swim lessons for the first time. It was a series of about 8 lessons, and tonight was her final night. She is signed up for another session this spring. She was in the "Tadpole" group with her cousin Josie and one other girl. Her swim teacher's name was Taylor. Several other cousins were at this same lesson time in other groups, including: Connor, Emma, Sam, Wilson, & Pierce... for a total of 7 cousins! Thanks to Brielle's aunts :) for always getting her to swim lessons while I was at work and Tim at track practice.

The younger kids wear floatation belts as they are learning because the shallow end of this pool is 4 1/2 feet. This is the same pool where Kristen, Jenny, and Alexia swam for 10 + years each through club swim team & high school swim team.

Brielle had a lot of fun and always looked very comfortable in the pool. One skill she seemed to master over the last few weeks is her "bobs". She plunges underwater and comes up with a smile :). She is very proud to show this off whenever she would catch us watching her. Her backfloats and doggie paddle improved too.

Another skill they worked on was jumping off the starting block. Sometimes Brielle wanted Taylor there to catch her, but Taylor worked on encouraging Brielle to jump on her own. In the photos below, Taylor was off to the side and Brielle did jump on her own. You can see a big smile on Brielle's face after she did it.

And a FIRST for tonight... Brielle jumped off the diving board. She walked to the end so quick and jumped right off, that this is my best picture :). I switched the camera to video-capture, but didn't get it in time. That's okay because I'm proud of the fact that she jumped off right away. Later, Taylor gave the 3 girls their report cards & a treat. Brielle was pretty excited about her Skittles, since Taylor told them last week that if they did a good job they would get Skittles.

Josie & Brielle :