We had a bit of an unconventional father’s day this year since DJ was scheduled to fly to Atlanta at 2:30 Sunday afternoon. We decided to do most of our celebrating on Saturday night because church starts at 8:30 a.m. and we don’t get home until noon.

So the first thing we did was take Daddy out for dinner at Italianni’s — where we helped him enjoy a very scrumptious dessert. Then Raine helped him open his presents.

One of his gifts was a Daddy themed lift-and-look book for him and Raine to read together. It was a huge hit!

The next day, DJ wore his “Raine tie” to church (the one that he got last year with pictures of Raine on it). Then we took him to the airport and had a few minutes of fun before he had to go through security. You know, fun like riding on his suitcase . . .

. . . and riding the escalator . . .

. . . and running as fast as you can while laughing gleefully!

Today was Raine’s last day of swim lessons and I’ll be honest, it ended in tears. Raine had so much fun in the water that she didn’t want to get out. She could have stayed in there for hours and still not have gotten enough, so the 30 minute classes were WAY too short.

Last Friday DJ was able to skip work for a few hours so he could swim with Raine.

They practiced scoops, kicking, blowing bubbles, and jumping off the side.

Raine has been the teacher’s special helper the entire two weeks. She LOVES Ms Patricia and runs over to her every chance she gets. Patricia uses Raine to demonstrate the skills and then always takes her out to play motorboat a few times.

Since today was “fun day” and DJ wasn’t there to take Raine down the slides, Ms Patricia took her. As soon as they made it to the bottom Raine would drag her back up to the top to do it again. Raine even went down the white slide by herself with Ms. Patricia at the bottom to catch her. No wonder she didn’t want to leave!

Teeth brushing is a regularly requested activity at our house, and it always takes place while seated in the sink. You can’t go into the bathroom without hearing “up peas” as Raine stretches up onto her tip-toes, willing herself onto the counter top. This is always followed by a “seeesss,” aka teeth, indicating that she wants to brush.

If you’re in the bathroom when it’s time to brush, you are going to get your teeth brushed — Raine makes sure of that.