Pool Days

Our little buddies have been little fish this summer. These are their daycare friends at the pool one afternoon last week. Its amazing to me how well behaved kids are at daycare, look at all these kids and not any issues all afternoon...WOW. IT was a really great day and every time they get in the pool they get a little better at swimming, the last day of Y swim class is Monday and they are swimming short distances on their own...!!

T-Ball

Jace Brainard, Colton and Brady enjoyed the t-ball season for the first time this summer! As you can see by the look on some of the faces.....pure determination:-)

Summer Concert

Sing it....Colton!

Brotherly LOVE

Colton gets his moves from his dad....

Brady likes to shake his arms...focusing very hard!!!

Brady is in the background shaking it up, Colton is trying his new move

They can even dance on the ground

Relaxing with an elephant ear

We went to the Shinedown concert at summer celebration this summer. We have not laughed that hard in a long time, above are snapshots of Brady and Colton breaking it down throughout the night, it was so funny, random people were taking pictures of them, the pics do not do the comedy show justice!

Camping Trip #2

THE FAMILY

THE FISH

AND THE FRIENDS!!

Colton practicing his back float

Brady practicing the american crawl

Two studs on sleeping bear dunes....a.k.a Jarred and Jake

THE MEN

THE WOMEN (WELL THE FEW THAT BRAVED THE HIKE)

The Swimming, The Lake, The sand dunes, The men, The Women....we had a great time with our fellow Journey friends at the annual Benzonia camping trip. I must say Sleeping Bear Dunes is the most beautiful site I have ever seen in all of Michigan!!!

CAMPING - The Channel

Who would of thought....SURELY not anyone who knows our family well....We are trying out camping this summer...FOUR times, YES JR is going camping with us...FOUR times!! Here are some pics of the first adventure, I think its obvious we had a WONDERFUL time, the whole family including our cousin Brandon and Maximus. We met up with three other families, the Whitakers, Smiths and Plumers all of who also have small children, they all played and had hours of good fun which included lots of the dreaded....DIRTY FEET!!! Thanks to our VanHees cousins we were able to stay in a camper, we are grateful for their generosity. This is what summers are made for, looking forward to Benzie Michigan camping this weekendwith our small group from church, yet again borrowing a camper. Then a traverse city trip in a "rustic cabin" and a fall adventure to Pioneer Park with 15 other families...what great friends we have, perhaps someday we will purchase our own camper, that is if I can ever convince JR:-)

Swimming Lessons

Brady and Colton did swimming lessons for the first time this year. They were the youngest in the class, but they did a nice job for three years old! They blew bubbles in the water, practiced back float and front float flutter kick. We swam in a friends pool last weekend and they were jumping in the deep end without us, with back pack float on of course, but they were little fish it was great to see.

Seaway RUN 5K

Seaway Run 2009
Added by Ken Stevens on June 27, 2009 at 1:17 PM
Vickie Swanson, 31, of Muskegon, rests in the shade and talks to sons Brady Swanson, 3, left, Colton Swanson, 3, and husband James Swanson, right, after completing the the 5K run during the 28th Annual Chronicle Seaway Run on Saturday morning

About 5 weeks ago I decided to train for a 5 K (3.1 mile) race. When I first started Leah and I went for a "run" (well if you want to call it that) .... jog .5 mile, walk .5 mile, try to jog another! It was awful and I realized what a heart attack waiting to happen I was!!! Thank you Leah for showing me this:-) I needed some real motivation other than my cardiac health, so I roped Jarred in, I know I did not want to let him down, once he was committed I was in 100%. My friend Danielle Bennett was also tossing around the idea of running the seaway so together we called, or facebooked each other at least 3-4 times a week to encourage each other to keep going, so thanks Danielle for more motivation! I am so proud of her for pushing her self to her physical limit as well. For some a 5k might not seem like a big deal, but this was for sure the biggest physical challenge I have ever pushed myself to do especially with what was to come....tendonitis...yuck! The 3rd week I was up to 4 miles, too many miles plus not enough rest plus extremely loose tendons EQUALS tendinitis...very bad tendinitis. After a trip to the Urgent Care I took three days off 7 days before the race, took way too many mortin, bought a brace, a shoe insert and RAN THE RACE! Along with Jarred and Danielle we all crossed the finish line. JR told Jarred numerous times how tough it would be to get an award (in the top ten)...well Jarred loves to prove him wrong and HE DID. Jarred placed 7th in his age group over 900 runners ran in the Seaway. Jarred came in just over 23 minutes, I was just over 28 minutes and 28th out of 60 in my group, my initial goal was under 30 minutes and then when the tendinitis hit I was really worried but in the end it worked out. Now from here if I can get my ankle fixed I am looking forward to more races especially with my awesome running friends, Jenni, Danielle, Leah, Shannan, Kristia and Jarred. I dont know if the future races will live up to the Seaway, its such a big race and an AWESOME experience!!

Following in his footsteps....

Brady, Brayton, and Colton in the locker room!!! 3 years old and in the big boy locker rooms!!!

Colton talking to Brayton. Colton in number 42

Jarred giving Colton instructions...

Brady is 43 - skating around doing his own thing, he is fast and crazy out there!!

Like brother like brother, I guess! Following along in Jarred's footsteps Colton and Brady have been learning to hockey skate (as they call it!) We haven't decided yet if the fall season will bring more skating lessons or real hockey, Brady is ready for hockey but Colton is not so fast just yet! But they have also been taking swimming lessons and Colton is the faster fish, its so fun to see each of them find their own little nitch!

The joys of Summer

Getting back on the boat has been WONDERFUL!!!

The little guys enjoy it more than ever this year.

Two buddies - they are ALWAYS hanging out together no matter where they are or what they do, its so darn cute

T-ball!!! Colton is not sure what the heck to do...obviously