Welcome Elsley!

This is Elsley! The newest member of the Odom household. Lola picked Elsley out all on her own after visiting two pet stores....she was very particular about exactly which fish she wanted. Elsley was a reward for completing swim lessons last week. Granted, he's not the parrot she originally wanted but he'll do. We actually like him a lot! Lola feeds him every morning and evening and is constantly going to check on the little guy. For a fish, he's quite social which is nice and he's very pretty. Lo also picked out all the decorations for his little tank. He has a pretty cool pad I must say!

Now on to the swim lessons.... I struggled with when and if I should do the swim lessons this year. I finally decided if I was able to get into Gwen a.k.a "The Swim Whisperer", that I would do it. Miraculously, she just so happened to have a cancellation and one last open spot in August.

Going into to the lessons I wondered how in the world Lola would learn to swim over a four day period with only 15 minute lessons a day. The friend who recommended her swore by it so we thought we'd give it a shot. The first day was pretty torturous for all of us. It was basically filled with screams...NON-STOP blood curdling screams. I must preface, Lola LOVES water and always has....she will swim away with her floaties on but typically doesn't swim with her head under water. The first day was filled with Lo being dunked...not fun! Come day two, Lola was screaming that she didn't want to go to swim lessons and continued to scream all the way into "The Swim Whisperers" arms but within minutes she stopped and she was swimming on her own. I have no idea what Gwen was saying to her but whatever it was, it was truly amazing to see Lola swimming like a fish after only 20 minutes of lessons. By day four, Lola was jumping into the pool and swimming to the side. I'm telling you...absolutely amazing!

Now Lola LOVES to go under water. She has to have her goggles on of course. I'm going to make sure to take Lo to the pool at least once a week if not more to practice the new swim moves. I'll also take Lola back to Gwen next summer to learn technique and I think I'll go ahead and start Gaines. Here's some pics from last weekend in Baird of Lola using her new swim skills...
BTW...if you want to get into "The Swim Whisperer", she opens her schedule up on January 1st and by January 15th, she's booked for the entire summer. So, it's really miraculous that we just so happened to get in this summer. YEA! It was well worth it.