swimming Tollers

For the Fourth of July we took the boys to Mission Lake for some swimming fun. {Actually, we were invited out there by our friends and asked if we could bring the boys. Who can resist them? So of course they said yes... and they turned out to be one of the entertainment highlights!}

Taylor wasn't so sure about this whole jumping-off-the-dock business. He preferred to wait for the ball to come to him.

Whether it came "naturally"...

... or with a helping hand.

Sunny had no problems with it, though.

Unless the ball was close to the dock. Then they would both wait.

If it wouldn't get there fast enough, they would paw at the water. Sometimes it worked... other times they fell in. {Tay fell in right after this picture, but he got the ball!}

This happened a lot. Sometimes they didn't seem to realize that they could go to shore and then swim out. So instead they'd just stand on the dock... whining.

Tay managed to swim without getting the back of his neck wet... so he looked like a bedraggled lion. Kind of awesome. {Except the few times he fell off the dock backwards and I had to pull him out.}

The only reason why I seem to have his attention here is because I was holding one of the balls.

I hadn't seen Tay really SWIM before... he's taken longer to get the hang of it than Sunny. Apparently he was swimming really well when my parents took them out a couple of weeks ago, but I had my doubts. Needless to say, I was quite proud of my little guy when I saw him swim on Saturday! With all four feet off of the bottom! {They haven't figured out how to get two balls in their mouths at the same time, but it doesn't stop them from trying!}

They were pooped puppies. Tay fell asleep on the front seat of my car from my parents' house to my house that night... I didn't have my camera at hand otherwise I would have snapped a pic or two. It was too cute!