POOOOOOL, dive nats, and some general complaining

 I had so much fun getting ready for pool opening last weekend. I love hauling my super giant Lands End bag out of the storage room and going through all of our pool junk from last year to see what makes the cut. Minnie is too mature for her heart-shaped goggles (**sob**), so she put those in the NO pile, along with these little stacking cups she has been playing with since babyhood and and princess-shaped dive sticks, plus these little wobbly penguin and polar bears and all her Bluey people.. This year, she is all about diving for rings and treasure, plus playing water balloons and water squirters with friends. 

She did keep the ancient Beauty and the Beast plastic tea cup and random paint brushes so she can paint the concrete during adult swim, so there's that vestige of babyhood at least

I have been buying either Hawaiian Tropics lotion 2-packs or Neutrogena spray 2-packs at Costco for months, so we are rich in sunscreen (the boys and Dorothy will basically ONLY use a spray **eye roll**). Dorothy also really loves this ELF shimmer sunscreen stick for her face, and Minnie uses a Cerave stick on her face. I use Hawaiian Tropics face sunscreen, and the boys have Target brand sticks, but I think they just go with a sunburn **more eye roll.** NONE of these makes the EWG cut, by the way. But a sunscreen you will USE is the best one...

In a burst of decide-once genius, we have a ton of THESE striped towels, so it's always easy to spot any that are left behind. (they are not currently in stock, and we always lose a few over the summer between the boys working at both pools and Coop diving, etc, so I guess I need to start thinking about a plan B...)

I put cash in my bag to ward off charging our account and threw some tiny bags of pretzels and goldfish in there. I also stocked up on junk food to make a snackle box for Dorothy and her rotating cast of pool  guests to eat at the tennis courts, plus I packed a tiny insulated lunch bag with cheese sticks, apple slices, and teeny frozen Hershey bars for Minnie.  (I bought a huge box of Drumsticks at Costco for $9, and I swear to you we are not buying individual Drumsticks for $4 at the snack shack-- Minnie can have a post-pool treat at home-- and we will see how long this lasts...)

Not the most popular box of the weekend:

My only beef with opening weekend (besides Cooper and Ben not being there)** is that the pool is crazy crowded, and I have to emerge from the shade tent to keep and eye on Minnie, which means I get tan despite my best efforts. I bought THESE pants to wear over my suit (SIZE DOWN YOU GUYS. MINE ARE TOO BIG, and I already wore them and just look kind of dumpy), but I think I also need a shirt, and it is HOT on the pool deck. (I might be better off IN THE WATER with a rash guard on...)

I also wore a giant old shirt of Ben's to protect my old wrinkly chest (not at the same time)

Pretty sure my face is red from being hot since I was pretty slathered and shaded. I actually LOVE Sephora water proof mascara fro the pool because it get all smudgy and I look like I maybe did more makeup-- thinking of getting it in blue, in fact).

They were (almsot) the first kids in the water!

First slide of the season:

LOL at the newly posted slide rules. Number 1 is silly-- alcohol is the ONLY REASON I go down the slide...

Day 2, more of the same:

Plus some diving board action

And a night swim

Bringing a kid home showered and pajama'ed is my FAVORITE SUMMER THING.

(Also, really, it was SLAMMED between 1-4-- like, nowhere to even sit. But I was too busy making sure my kid didn't drown to take pics of that).

Speaking of SLAMMED. We got to the pool 15 minutes after it opened on Monday, and it was SO CROWDED that we couldn't even get a CHAIR. It was, like, public pool crowded. My goodness. But! Minnie had fun, and so did Dorothy and her friend, and we all went home for dinner and came back at 6:30 when things were dead and once again closed the place down.

**Ben and Cooper were at AAU Red-White-Blue NATIONALS for dive, where COOPER! Placed 5th in 1-meter, 4th in platform, and SECOND in 3-meter!! In all 3 events, he was second going into the final dive. In the first two events, that final dive was... not his best, but by event 3, he was handling pressure like a PRO. SO AWESOME!

A few dives from the weekend:

Next up, Cooper goes to Iowa City  the first weekend in June to attempt to qualify for USA Diving nationals (THE BIG SHOW). The org has changed the qualification process this year, so it is MUCH HARDER to qualify. Please keep your fingers and toes crossed for him for the next couple of weeks.