Our first pool party

On Thursday night I decided with the weather being close to 100 degrees on Friday and my girls are in school during the summer and in August when they are off, we are busy every Friday and this is when we get together with "Fridays Playgroup" which is made up with families that have children that were born in China.  Normally I would not let my kids miss school for this, but I felt this was a special treat.  They found out on Friday morning and they were so excited.  Our wonderful friend opened up her private pool for us and there was 7 families there, and it was a blast.  Some of us moms even jumped in and swam.  Other times we got to sit back and chat with each other while the kids swam for 4 hours.  I told Erin to put sunscreen on and she said she didn't need it because in China she doesn't get tan.  After she was finished swimming she discovered she had tan lines and was not a happy even when all the moms were saying they liked that color

Katie and Monika

Erin

Monika

Katie

Erin had mixed feelings with going, she wanted to swim, but when she found out everyone was hearing she was to crazy about it.  As soon as we got there, one of the moms came up to me and said my neice is the same age as Erin.  This mom (Michelle), knows basic sign and try to communicate with Erin and did pretty well with her.  Erin and Michelle's neice Haliey didn't interact much at the beginning, but then Erin warmed up to her and they had a lot of fun with one another

The girls were all fastinated with the way the deaf talk.  They kept asking me how to sign things and some of them couldn't quite get how she and I could communicate without talking.  Erin was very good about being patient with them and didn't seem to mind them all staring at her.
Once it was all done and we were on our way home, Erin told me she enjoyed herself and liked this group (she has said that before).  I reminded her again that she needs to be more open minded with things and wait until she gets there or does something before making up her mind that she isn't goint ot like it

Monika taking it all in

The pool got crowded.  One mom had her 6 youngest there, I had my 4 (don't know why I don't have pictures of Jenny), Michelle had 5 (only one was her daughter), but there was plenty of room for them all to play.

I am so grateful for this great playgroup.  I have known them for about 5 years now and they are a great support group and a great bunch of people.  We have some dad's that also join us, which is awesome.  Thank you Lord so much for giving me this extended family.  I adore all of you in Friday Playgroup, thank you for being a huge part of my life