LOVE.LAUGH.READ.: This summer...

Some of you may know that Colata was away for the summer doing an internship at Southwest Washington Medical Center in Vancouver, Wa. He has now returned, but I must say that it was one of the hardest experiences of my life playing the role of a single parent of two kids. I always knew it was a hard situation to be in, but until you experience it first hand, I don't think you ever truly know how difficult it really IS.
The summer started off with a near-drowning of Gabe in the pool/pond in our backyard. Luckily, Jada is really tuned in with the Holy Ghost and jumped into the pool to save him. That was the biggest and scariest mishap of the summer, and it almost broke me, but luckily nothing so big and terrifying happened for the rest of the summer.
Jada kept cool and busy by being on the Shoreline Gator's swim team. It was so exciting to see her swim and even win some of her heats. I enjoyed participating as a spectator and learning a wee bit more about a sport I had no idea about before. During the school year she'll be continuing swim lessons, and who knows, maybe she'll end up being the girl version of Michael Phelps (the eight Olympic gold medals, not the illegal drug mishap).
Gabe discovered and watched for the first time the movie Cars and a couple of weeks ago we introduced Finding Nemo. So instead of watching Cars twice a day, I get a daily dose of Nemo and Cars. At least there's a little variety. He cracks me up every time he watches Cars now, because he knows the movie so well that he mimics the facial expressions (since he can't really repeat lines as he's not speaking so clearly yet) I especially love the scene where mack is trying to keep himself awake and does a lot of shaking and rolling of his eyes to keep himself awake. Now picture GABE doing just that. Hilarious.
Colata is back home now, and he is busy working on letters and essays for applications to Fellowships at different hospitals all over the USA. School starts at the end of September, so he is focusing all his time on the Fellowship stuff. Hopefully all the effort will work well in his favor.
I have got to give a huge Thank you to Southwest Washington Medical Center in Vancouver. Colata learned so much from all the administrators there and he has come back with renewed confidence in his abilities and a knowledge that this definitely is the profession for him.
Here are some pics of some of our summer adventures.... Enjoy!