Another swimmer

Lincoln found his courage recently and finally tried going underwater with his goggles. That's all he needed to do to get going because he's been doing this ever since.

Now we need to learn to catch

Don't judge Levynn's hitting based on that hooping video! She's made great strides in recent days, as we've been out there playing ball several times.

It really took off after Levynn attacked Dad with such ferocity during some pool noodle light saber battling that he remarked, "You're swinging that thing harder than you swing a baseball bat!" That pumped her up. She grabbed the bat and suddenly had a totally new batting stance and swing. It carried over to today. Lincoln had been hitting better than her - more consistently and harder - but not anymore.

Lincoln's holding his own, though.

Dad needs to break in the new gloves now.

Holy hula hoops!

Levynn's become quite the hooper. Apparently, she does it a lot at recess. And she won a contest at school last week, beating the entire third grade for longest sustained hooping.

Have a look for yourself.

Wow, Part II

We kid you not. Mom sneaked into their bedroom just before Levynn's alarm woke her, and that was her reaction.

Her alarm was set for 6 a.m. because we wanted to open some presents before Dad went downstairs to host the breakfast service. Otherwise, we would have had to wait until almost 9 p.m. to do it - after the school day ended and the last friend had left here post-"party" (more on that later).

This is one of them, a gift for both kids from Granddaddy and Susan. It foreshadows another for a later day. Stay tuned.

As it happened, we didn't finish opening presents until 9 p.m. anyway. Oh well.

Levynn's idea for a party was delightfully simple: invite two close friends (whose families we also know best) to ice cream at Ghirardelli and a couple of hours playing here at home. This friend had to stay later so she joined us for dinner at Big Bowl.

Among the presents in the second round of opening was... an Associated Press Stylebook? Yes, it was. (FYI: That's a textbook for editors. And Dad might be borrowing it.)

What's going on, you ask? Dad recently was invited to take the Tribune's copy editing test, and Mom brought home her current spiral bound copy for him to study. Levynn caught sight of it, took a look and fell in love with it. She said she wanted one for her birthday!

Again, we kid you not. We couldn't make this stuff up. Is this what it's like to have a 9-year-old?

Wow

Levynn's Girl Scout troop had its end-of-year celebration after school today, and this time around she graduated - or "bridged," in Scout parlance - from Brownies to become a Junior. That's right. She's not a Brownie anymore!

It was the start of an exciting six-day stretch that also includes her birthday and the last day of school. By the end of it, she'll be 9, a fourth-grader and a Girl Scout Junior.

So, yeah. Wow.

Back to the ceremony. Levynn was chosen to lead the Brownies through all the steps of it, including speaking to the assembled parents. She was the first to "bridge," which you can see in the video, and then she stood there and hugged the other girls who bridged as each came across. It was very sweet.

Adventures for city kids

We went to the Chicago Park District's Family Adventure Day today at Northerly Island, the far reaches of museum campus. The highlights were the archery and fishing, of course.

The kids got a little tutorial before they could let an arrow loose.

Levynn didn't put enough oomph into her first shot.

She missed the target on her second shot.

But she hit the target eventually. Lincoln hit it on his first try.

They both caught more than one fish.

Then they had to throw the fish back.

And they found a great tree on the walk back to the bus stop.

Dinosaurs!

An Australian company called Erth brought its dinosaur zoo to Millennium Park this weekend. It was billed as a "petting zoo" with realistic dinosaur puppets, which sounded interesting. It turned into a bit more than we expected, though. Check it out.

Girls and boys

While Mom and Levynn had girl time together, Dad and Lincoln went to the National Train Day event at Union Station.

We were able to walk all around a couple Metra train cars on our own, even both sides of the operator cabin.

A Hawaiian courthouse

Third-graders have been working on architecture projects in class, and tonight was a gallery night to display them for parents. Here's Levynn's:

April showers bring May kites

The annual Chicago Kids and Kites Festival was today, at Cricket Hill on the far north side of Lincoln Park as always.

And, seemingly as always, we were there.