Little Mermaids

We've been at my parents's house for the past few days and have spent as much of every day as possible in the pool.  Apple and Strawberry  both had swim lessons for two weeks before we left.  Strawberry astonished me with how much she had improved since the last time we had been in a pool.  She swims around in the deep end no problem and has been diving down to the bottom of the pool for dive sticks, at least 6 or 7 feet below the surface.  She'll easily swim the length of the pool and has even started coordinating her breathing so that she doesn't have to stop and tread water to get a breath. 

Apple still can't swim on her own, and so she wears a little floaty swimsuit, but she has blown me away by how much she has improved since we got here too.  During swim lessons, she would do her darndest to keep her face out of the water and would make the teacher hold her hands when she jumped in.  But on the first day, she started jumping in by herself.  The floaty has given her the confidence to be brave and after two or three days, she had worked up enough nerve to jump off the diving board (a little bribe didn't hurt either).  Then yesterday, her uncles were showing off to each other and started doing flips off the diving board.  Little Apple didn't want to get shown up and she got up there and started flipping too.  It's so cute because before every jump, she has to sit there for a minute and work herself up to it, but then she goes for it. 

Mango has been in the pool twice and can't figure out what all the fuss is about.  I'll post pictures later, but for now, here's a video of my daring little Apple.