I have always been such a fan of swimming and it stems from when my dad used to take me when I was little. After he left my Mum it kind of became our thing somehow and I don’t really remember a trip to see him when we didn’t go.

As a smaller child we used to revel in finding the pools with the best slides and then as I grew we would always make sure we found one with a great lengths section so that we could race each other at a swimming mile…

As a result of our Daddy and daughter time I became a confident swimmer who enjoyed time in the pool. I also learned to dive and swim all sorts of different lengths which I still really enjoy doing today. Swimming for me isn’t exercise it’s just fun and I have always wanted to pass on the baton to my own children because to be able to swim well is a real gift.

Luckily when I met Jonny he, like me, always wanted our holidays to be mainly based around swimming. It didn’t really matter where we went just so long as we had either a fabulous beach or a wonderful swimming pool. I remember a particularly rainy day in Monsoon India where we were in the pool regardless of the rain! It was our first holiday together and we spent the entire time in our cossies…. (Well, not when we were in Bombay walking around but all the rest of it!)

Florence came along and within about a week I asked the health visitor when I could take her swimming! I wanted to get her in that pool straight away!

I took the picture on the left in the changing rooms on her first trip to the pool at about 3 months old! By the time the summer came she was already an old hand and LOVED being in the water so much we bought a mini paddling pool to play in in the garden too! 

And we continued from there. Family swimming just about anywhere we could and continuing to make it always  big part of any holiday. When Jimmy arrived it was apparent he was going to be a water baby from the start! The day my labour started with him Florence and I had just got back from a trip to the local pool and within minutes of me sitting down my waters went!

My water baby Jimmy was keen on water from the start!

I wasn’t surprised but was still increibly proud when Florence learned to properly swim (under water too) while she was three years old! We were on holiday and she’d had the luxury of practising twice daily then before we came home she just did it! We’d bought her goggles which seemed to help and away she went! Here’s a video of the day she did it for the first time! Can you hear the pride in my voice!

So that’s us! That’s what we like doing to keep active together! We swim on holiday and we swim at home. We swim on the beach, in the paddling pool, in the swimming pool, wherever we can! It’s super good for you, very inexpensive and so much fun for the whole family as well as being a really important skill to have!

Swimming means fun on the beach, these pictures were taken at Chalkwell beach in Essex where they have a fabulous children’s pool at the top of the beach!

My water babies and me!

We like to swim and play in water wherever we can!

And most importantly our activity of choice means we get to have fun as a whole family!

We’re a family of swimmers and I am inspired to swim with my family because my Dad always swam with me. It’s a baton I hope my children will be able to pass on to their own babies and long may our family of swimmers continue!

This is our entry into the Mark Warner Holidays blogging challenge to find out how families keep active. The prize is for tickets to Go Ape (which we also really enjoy and have been a few times before)! We won the last Mark Warner Holidays challenge with our post about what to take on holiday while staying light on the packing so fingers crossed for this one too! We will be entering all the challenges in the hope our names will be drawn at the end to win a fabulous family holiday which will hopefully include lots of swimming!