Gymnastics seems so natural for a kid like Lucy... she's not afraid to climb, swing, crawl, or jump onto anything and is eerily balanced and coordinated for her age. Crawling at 7 months, walking at 10 months, this girl has been begging for this kind of action since before she was born. We tried a couple of toddler gymnastics classes at the YMCA in Bethesda last fall/winter and they were okay-- the teachers were cool, but it was really unstructured and she got bored doing the same things every week. Fast forward through a busy winter and spring, and finally once summer hit, I needed her to do some climbing, jumping, and running in a place other than our house. Along comes Dynamite Gymnastics Center... my saviors! The teachers are great, the place is HUGE and new and fantastic, and the classes are challenging but not frustrating.
Lucy LOVES her class and I'm glad that she is learning how to follow directions, stay with the group, and watch demonstrations before just running/jumping in. (Definitely still a work in progress!) Her two buddies, Anna and Ojas, come to class with us and its just a big, giant lovefest. Okay, I have to admit that its a little more $$ than I wanted to spend on a 'just for fun' class for a 2 1/2 year old... but its not breaking the bank, and it fits her like a glove. Or like a leotard... like this one that we HAD to buy after she was mesmerized watching the older girls running and doing cartwheels and back handsprings.
And since us Stengers are so adventurous, we decided to do something different this past weekend, and be all American and stuff and take in a sporting event! (If you know us well, you will laugh out loud at this, since we don't exactly follow professional sports.) I mean, I grew up playing soccer and Scott likes to shoot some hoops, but we are not really "sports fans." Superbowl is on? Who cares. (Except for the half time show, of course.) Stanley Cup? Whatever. World Series? Ok, I'll watch the exciting clips on the news and be satisfied with that. But our good friends, the Santiago's are SERIOUS baseball fans, so we decided that we wanted to take in a Frederick Keys Minor League game with them. Despite the EXCESSIVE SWELTERING HEAT THAT MADE US FEEL LIKE WE WERE WATCHING A GAME ON THE SURFACE OF THE SUN, it was a lot of fun. [Also, for the record, Scott and I did go see a Washington Wizards game last December. How's that for American?]
"Keyote" the Keys' mascot. When he first walked by our seats, I said, "hey, kids! look-- its a bear-- er, dog, fox thing." The season ticket-holder lady sitting in front of us turn back to me HORRIFIED and said, "Bear, dog, fox?!?! No, that's Keyote, our mascot." Ahhaaa... Frederick-1, Stengers-0.
Luckily there was a Rita's ice stand on site.
And we got a sweet 3 minutes of breeze on the merry-go-round. God bless minor league parks for having this kind of stuff. The kids also got to run around the bases after the game. Even though Lucy was probably like, what the hell are bases? She still had fun running.
There was a 2 minute time limit in the moon bounce because of the heat. Zoiks. Fried kid, anyone?
And at the end, we got to tailgate and watch some pretty cool fireworks before we headed home.
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