American in Spain

In North Carolina in the summer, it gets very hot. Like in southern Spain, there are several hours every day when you simply can’t be outside unless you’re actively cooling yourself with water. Marga and Nora spent a lot of time in swimming pools. First, they went to the municipal pool at the Morganton Recreational Center, which has a nice kids pool where Nora can touch the bottom. It’s in a nice location because they can walk there from my parents new house they bought a year ago. Later in the week, they decided to go to the swimming pool at my parents old, yet unsold, house, a pool my mother has spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours cleaning in the twenty years they lived there. That was a lot of fun too. At first, Nora was a little skeptical of the water, but eventually she made it to the point where she was throwing herself into the pool from the steps.
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The last time we visited the United States, we went sailing with Uncle John on Lake James. This time our visit almost perfectly coincided with John’s vacation to the Gulf Coast, but we did get one day with him and he took us out onto Lake James again, but this time on his pontoon boat with my parents and grandmother. On the entire ride from the dock to a little cove where John likes to go to bathe, Nora was saying “I want to go in the water! I want the water!” Of course when we finally dropped anchor and people started diving in, her opinion shifted a bit. She had a great little life vest that alleviated all our parental concerns for her safety, but Nora’s worries weren’t so easily placated. Eventually we got her down onto a float, and then moved her to another float that left her more in the water. Towards the end, she even was brave enough to attempt being in the open water with just her vest and my arms, but she realized quickly that she preferred being in her little float. When it was time to go, she didn’t want to get back in the boat. All in all, I think it was a wonderfully successful first lake bathing experience.
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