June 2025

We really enjoyed our first full month of summer vacation! It was filled with swim lessons, summer camp, a soccer tournament, family reunion, and lots of pool time. Here’s the recap:

Abigail started swim lessons on June 2nd by doing the beginner strokes class with Ashleigh for the first time. It’s a 9-day class that lasts 1 hour each day. Abigail was assigned to the 8:30 am class, so which meant getting up early for the next couple of weeks 😊 In the first class, they reviewed a lot of the basics from beginner classes and started practicing treading water. I was impressed at how well Abigail could tread for her first time ever trying it! She had a great attitude and listened very well to directions. Very proud of her!

Alisha was getting ready to start teaching the K-1 bible class at church, so I helped her get the classroom set up and the bulletin boards ready. The kids had fun playing Twister and other games while we were working :)

Savannah really got into making her own arcade games after her GE class had a unit on them back in the spring. She spent hours and hours building and painting several games and even got Brooklyn’s help on some of them. I was impressed by her creativity and how hard she worked on them! The mini golf game even had a chute where the “ball” would return to you after it went in the hole.

On June 3rd (2nd day of swim lessons), Abigail’s class learned how to do the elementary backstroke and continued practicing treading water/floating for a little bit longer than yesterday. They also worked on blowing bubbles through their noses and using their arms for freestyle.

We met Emily and her girls after that for our first swim of the summer in our neighborhood pool. It was fun to catch up with them and spend some time together.

On June 4th, Abigail’s class worked on side breathing for the first time. I was so proud of how well she did! It’s a lot to think about all at the same time (3 arm strokes, then a breath…blowing bubbles through your nose and taking a breath with your mouth), but she really did good for her first time. I was excited to see how she would progress over the next week and a half.

On June 5th (4th day of lessons), Abigail started learning the basics of backstroke as well as practicing diving for the first time. She did a great job in backstroke of stretching out long and staying on top of the water.

The girls surprised Travis with a birthday banner on the door when he got home from work. They drew as many of his favorite things as they could think of :) He officially entered the last year of his 30s!

The kitties enjoyed a nice, relaxing day while Travis was working on his birthday :)

It felt a bit strange to still have soccer practices in June, but we knew that’s what we were signing up for when Brooklyn and Savannah made the tournament team. They scrimmaged one of the boys’ teams that evening during practice!

On June 6th, Abigail’s class continued working on their backstroke, but they added their arms to it. They have continued practicing treading water every day and are up to 20 seconds at least. The goal is to tread for 30 seconds by the end of the lessons. They are also practicing freestyle and diving each day. Proud of her effort so far!

The annual Dvorak family reunion was on June 7th. We tried making Grandpa’s favorite flavor ice cream this year…heavenly hash. It is a chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips, marshmallow cream, and almonds in it. It tasted good but was super sweet and never got very firm. We may have to tweak the recipe if we try it again. (Grandpa recently passed away, so I’m really glad we made it for him while we had the opportunity!). The kids had fun playing with water guns outside when we first arrived. They also played board games, frisbee, basketball, and ate lots of yummy food. It rained for a little while in the afternoon, but otherwise we had great weather. It was a fun time as usual, and the kittens were glad to see us after having a quiet house all day.

June 8th was the first day of the Life in Bible Times session for Abigail’s bible class. It’s one of my favorite sessions for that age group because they get to learn about what it would have been like to live back then. They kicked off the session with a class on clothing and got to wear tunics and head coverings while they learned.

On June 9th, Abigail kept practicing backstroke and did it all the way across the pool! She also worked on diving some more and practiced the “swim team” dive. She is doing pretty well with freestyle but has a hard time remembering to blow bubbles when her face is in the water, so when she comes up for a breath, she has to blow out first. It’s a lot to remember, but she’ll get there!

On June 10th, Abigail continued practicing treading and floating, a little bit of freestyle, and then they spent the majority of the hour learning the kicks for breaststroke (“frog legs”). I was proud of Abigail for trying even though it wasn’t easy. I thought she did a good job for her first ever attempts!

Sweet Willow is a very patient kitten!

On June 11th, Abigail and her classmates learned the breaststroke arms and put it together with the kicks. Abigail also learned a new dive called the tippy toe dive, which she LOVED! You basically just bend and lean over off the edge of the diving board and let gravity help you dive. She liked that a lot, and it’s definitely her favorite type of dive. So exciting to see her get it!

It was hard to believe that June 12th was the last day of swim lessons for the summer! Abigail worked on all the things they learned over the last 9 days, and they got to do a little relay race at the end. Everyone got to choose their favorite stroke to swim, and she chose freestyle. I’ve been so proud of her for having a good attitude each day, trying her best, and not getting frustrated even when things weren’t always easy. I think she needs another year of beginner strokes classes, and then maybe we’ll be done with swim lessons for good!!

Brooklyn and Savannah played in the AYSO Section 5 tournament over Father’s Day weekend, and they kicked things off with something called Soccer Fest on June 12th, which involved the kids from all the teams coming together and playing fun scrimmage games (the teams were mixed up with kids from all over). We were only able to stay for the first hour (5-6 pm) because we had tickets to the Trash Pandas game at 6:30 pm with our small group. The Trash Pandas were playing the Pensacola Blue Wahoos. The game started off slow for the first several innings, and I’m not sure the Trash Pandas even had any hits. They finally got it going and even hit 2 home runs, I think. They ended up winning the game 5-4. The girls didn’t really care too much about the game (they aren’t big baseball fans), but enjoyed the shaved ice they got 😊 It was a fun night with some of our church fam.

Brooklyn and Savannah’s first tournament game was scheduled for June 13th at 2:30 pm at Merrimack 13A. We were all very excited! Abigail made a Golden Girls sign to cheer the team on. Travis took off work early, and we got there at 2 pm for them to warm up. Neither of them started in the 1^st quarter, and after about 5 minutes of play, there was lightning in the area and the game had to be delayed. We barely made it to the car before it started monsooning. The forecast wasn’t looking great the entire weekend, so it wasn’t entirely surprising. The score was still 0-0 when it was paused. We waited in the car and then at a nearby CFA to see if they might be able to start back, but they ended up postponing the rest of the day’s games until Saturday. We were happy to get some CFA ice cream at least! 😊

On June 14th, the original schedule had the girls playing at 10 am and 4 pm, and then yesterday’s game got postponed to 7 pm tonight. So 3 games in one day! Whew. For the 10 am game, the girls had a big crowd with Cici, Paw, Rae Rae, and the Loveless crew all there. The Golden Girls were playing a team from somewhere in South Carolina, which was neat. The teams came from all across the southeast. This was our easiest game of the tournament, and the Golden Girls won 4-1. It was interesting to see how playing on artificial turf was so much different than grass. The ball rolled way faster and bounced a lot higher. It definitely seemed to affect the game. Both girls started the game on the bench again, and then I think Brooklyn played the rest of the game, and Savannah played 2 quarters. Savannah played good defense, and we were proud of her! Brooklyn played multiple positions and played hard!

We went home for a few hours before returning to Merrimack for the 4pm game. This game was a little closer. We were playing the same team from Harvest/Monrovia that we’d scrimmaged a couple of weeks ago. This time, we won the game 2-0. We had quite a few more chances to score that just didn’t go in. We had packed sandwiches for supper, so we decided to just stay at the fields and eat rather than try to go grab fast food before the 7 pm game. It worked out nicely.

The 7 pm game was delayed by a few minutes by another round of lightning, but I think they were able to get started by about 7:15. This game was against a different team from Harvest/Monrovia that we hadn’t played before. It was a tougher matchup, although we had lots of opportunities to score. It ended in a 1-1 tie. We were leading until they tied it up close to the end of the game. The outcome didn’t actually affect our matchup in the semifinal game the next morning though. There were six 12U teams, and 4 of them went to the semifinals. We were in 2^nd place in the standings, so we were set to play the 3^rd place team, which was the team we tied at 7 pm.

Unfortunately, the semifinal game was scheduled for 10 am on Sunday morning, and we didn’t feel right about skipping church for it. We had let the coaches know ahead of time we wouldn’t make the semifinal if they made it that far, so they knew in advance. Thankfully, this team was made up of a lot of talented players, so I felt like our team still had a good chance to win the game. Sure enough, they won 1-0! Gabriella scored the winning goal! This meant we would be playing in the championship game at 1:30 pm. There were several aspects to that particular worship service that were reminders to me that we’d made the right choice to go that morning rather than do soccer instead. It’s not an easy choice, but God reminded us that it was the right one.

We headed straight to Merrimack after church, having packed another round of sandwiches for lunch…haha. We also had Brooklyn’s stuff for FC camp in the car with us since she was supposed to be checking into camp that afternoon and would be late after the soccer game ended. This time, we were playing a team that we hadn’t played yet from Meridianville/Hazel Green. They’d won all their games easily and hadn’t even been scored on during the entire tournament.

We knew it would be a tough game, but it was actually a very even matchup. Both teams possessed the ball about the same amount of time and had multiple chances to score. Gabriella played goalie the whole first half and did AMAZING, blocking a penalty kick and making several other great saves. No one scored at all during the whole first half, and I’m not sure anyone scored in the 3^rd quarter either. The other team scored first, and we were down in the last quarter when Brooklyn happened to get the ball in the box and just nailed it right into the back of the net. Travis and I jumped out of our seats and started jumping up and down. Everyone was so excited! The girls all hugged her and were jumping up and down. It was great!! I realized later that Brooklyn was the only one to score on that team the whole tournament. The game went into two 5-minute overtime periods. We gave up another penalty kick unfortunately on a handball in the box, and the other team scored this time. They also scored again on a breakaway run. We ended up losing the game 3-1. The girls were devastated and most were crying after the game, including Brooklyn. Savannah started to cry too but said it was more because she saw Brooklyn crying, which made her feel sad. They played their hearts out though, and we were so proud of them. They got some really cool medals and took pictures after the game. Playing in the heat and on artificial turf wasn’t easy, but I was proud of them for doing their best. Brooklyn made great passes during the tournament, and Savannah held her own against older, bigger girls. Super proud of her for being brave enough to try out for the 12U tournament team when she is technically still young enough for 10U. Coach Brian said after the game that both of them were kind, mature, coachable, and respectful, and he was glad to have them on the team. They learned a lot and improved their game, and it was a great experience. So fun having the girls on the same team this season!

As soon as we finished up at the soccer tournament, Brooklyn and I hopped in the car and drove to F.C. Camp, which was close to two hours away. We were later getting there than usual, so her counselors were going over cabin rules as we arrived and were making her bed. But it worked out super well that she got there in time for dinner and evening activities. She had a wonderful week, enjoyed seeing some old friends and making new ones, and had a lot of fun.

Cassie and Willow got no shortage of attention, even with Brooklyn gone for the week :)

With Brooklyn at camp, it was a good time to meet up with Gabriella and Mia at our neighborhood pool, so we did that on June 16th.

On June 17th, the Lovelesses and Dorans came over to swim with us. Alisha brought a couple of huge pool floats that entertained the kids. They had fun together!

Other things that Savannah and Abigail stayed busy with during the week include playing chess, having a sleepover at Cici’s (not pictured), and throwing a graduation party for Cassie and Willow. Apparently the kittens attended and passed 1st grade! :)

I picked Brooklyn up from camp on June 21st. She was tired but happy to see me and tell me about all the fun she’d had!

On June 22nd, Abigail’s bible class got to sample a variety of Bible times foods after learning about what people ate back then. Abigail was pumped! She had been excited for this ever since her big sisters got to do it. She tried everything and especially liked the cucumbers and fruits.

More Willow cuddles :)

We planned to deliver the Millstone News with Emily and her girls on June 23rd, but before we’d gotten too far down the sidewalk, Addie fell off her scooter in a muddy, slippery area and hurt her arm. We could tell it didn’t look good, so Emily took her to TOC walk-in clinic while the other girls hung out with us for the rest of the morning/afternoon until they got back. We ate lunch, went to the pool, and watched a movie before they finished up. It turned out that Addie broke her arm, which we hated to hear. She was super tough and didn’t even cry, which was impressive.

Our “watch-cats” like to guard the front door…or maybe they are just curious and like to see what’s going on outside ;)

We did a “sister swap” with Sarah’s girls on June 26th. Her oldest three came over to our house, and Savannah and Abigail went to their house for a couple of hours. Everyone had fun! Brooklyn, Lucy, Kate, and Olive made a couple of recipes from the Keeper of the Lost Cities book series. They also played with Cassie and Willow and played a couple of games. We were glad to have them over!

Meanwhile, Savannah, Abigail, and Chloe played and made cookies at Sarah’s house. They had a good time too!

We already had a pool date on the calendar with Sarah’s and Emily’s girls for June 27th prior to Addie breaking her arm, so we went ahead and kept our original plans even though we knew Addie wouldn’t be able to swim like normal. I thought it was super sweet that Abigail decided to bring a joke book along so that she and Addie could tell jokes while sitting on the pool steps. She still did a little swimming, but wanted to make sure Addie had fun too.

On June 28th, we were invited to Jared and Brittney’s to eat brunch and pick blueberries with a few other families from church. We came home with more blueberries than we knew what to do with, and they were delicious!

We tried delivering the neighborhood newspaper that afternoon for the second time that week and considered it a success when we got all the papers passed out and no one got hurt.

Abigail loved celebrating Adelyn’s birthday with her on June 29th. They dressed up and played with American Girl dolls.

Notes and Quotes from June 2025:

• 6/3/25 – Abigail was looking through an old binder of artwork that she’d saved, and she found a picture that Brooklyn drew her that said “Sort of amazing Abigail” on it. (This was back before Abigail could read, so she didn’t know what it said.) Abigail brought the picture to me and exclaimed, “Why did Brooklyn draw this?? I’m not sort of amazing…I’m fully amazing! I’m throwing this away!” :)

Thanks for reading!