Lake House with Everyone, Part IV -- Out on the Town

As the lake house is fairly far away from any "civilization" we rarely venture out, but each trip we usually do go into town for at least on meal.  This time we went to our favorite Mexican restaurant to celebrate Hayden's birthday.  We were all happy with our meal, especially our kids who love any excuse to stuff themselves with chips and queso.  Keira brought Maisy who she practiced undressing and dressing during any down times in the meal.  Grammie took a picture of me, Keira and Maisy.

 

 

Grammie snapped some more pictures of Keira and I outside of the restaurant, while we were all loading up into our respective cars.  Keira was cracking both of us up with the "licking game."  Somehow this game started during our various times waiting at Disney World.  Both kids would surprise me with little licks which I would shriek and say "Gross!" which they loved, they'd giggle and do it again.  If nothing else, the game is good for some good grins and giggles.

 



Lake House with Everyone, Part III -- Boat Rides

While Keira loved the water front, Elijah loved the boats. He enjoyed the water front, too, but by far his favorite way to enjoy the water was on a jet ski or on Babo's Boat. He wanted to go on the jet ski at least once a day, and to his delight I even took him out on the jet ski on this trip. Two parent drivers meant double the jet ski possibilities.  Hayden was a huge jet ski enthusiast as well, so he joined Daddy and Elijah on a couple of adventures.  As for me, it was such a treat to zoom around the lake, squealing with laughter with my boy.  On this trip I felt much more able to leave Keira while I enjoyed some special Elijah time on the lake.  We had a blast!

 

 

As usual, besides the jet ski, Babo's Boat Ride was also a hit.  For Elijah, the highlight of Babo's Boat Ride was riding on the tube.  And, again, I even got a chance to go tubing with my boy.  Although we didn't get any pictures of Elijah and I on the tube, maybe next time.

Keira's favorite part of the boat rides were swimming off the boat, in the middle of the lake.  I had a great time swimming with my silly, squealing, gleeful girl. 

One of the nice things about going on a boat ride with so many family members was that Scottie and I even got a little time to enjoy a cuddle and watch our kids standing at the gate on the bow.

 

 

Finally, for the kids, no boat ride is complete without a trip to the Marina for a treat.  Elijah looks spaced out and tired in these pictures from a busy day on the water.  But, obviously he's never too tired for chocolate!



Lake House with Everyone, Part II -- Water Fun

Keira loved the water front.  Besides visiting the bunk beds downstairs, it was her favorite destination.  She played happily for hours in the water and on the sand, and usually a lot of both.  Once again, she was amazingly independent in her Princess Float.

Besides happily playing by herself for house, she also enjoyed some water time with different family members.  She even got to spend some special time with Uncle Brian in the water before he had to head back home.

 

 

Elijah also got to enjoy some time horsing around with Uncle Brian in the water, too.  They took turns trying to throw each other in the lake.



Besides trying to push Uncle Brian into the lake, Elijah spent many other happy hours at the waterfront, too.  He played in the sand and swam around the swimming area.  Unfortunately, his comfort in the pool didn't completely translate to lake swimming.  But, he loved swimming out to the float and asked Daddy and I to accompany him whenever he got the chance.

Lake House with Everyone, Part I -- Lake House

In the middle of July, we spent a week at the Lake House.  The whole family spent at least a little time up at the lake -- Aunt Seana, Mr. Josh and Hayden stayed up all week, Grammie and Babo left two days before we did, and Uncle Brian and Ms. Kathryn came up over the weekend.  It was wonderful to see everyone -- we had a great time.  I've divided my memories and pictures into four posts: Lake House, Water Fun, Boat Rides and In Town.  First, I'll start with all the fun we had around the house.

As with any trip with that many people, we had no shortage of food.  Fortunately, we used the food spreadsheet that Brian created a few years ago which clarified the meal planning and cut down on the redundancy.  Along with regular meals that everyone chipped in on, as usual, Aunt Seana kept us well stocked in yummy baked goods.  True to form, Elijah volunteered to help with some of the baking.  That's one of my favorite parts of going up to the Lake House with such a big group -- there's plenty of opportunity for spontaneous extended family time.

 

 

With that many people and in this in this day and age of laptops, we had FIVE laptops at the lake house at one point.  When Josh realized that this picture was being taken, he rushed to bring out all the computers to highlight the ridiculousness.

 

 

As usual, my favorite place to be around the house was on the screened in porch.  The wonderful thing about this trip is that the kids are getting older and more independent.  While Keira played next to us on the porch, I was able to play a few games.  Amazing!  My favorite was Rummy-O.  Hayden and Elijah loved the game, too.  It was especially fun to watch them play together since this was the first time they had met.

 





Buzz

I think we may have a little actress in the making.  For the last year or so, her favorite game has been some version of Dora The Explorer.  She would "talk" to her audience the way Dora does, describing her adventure and asking for help.  Now, this summer, was the summer of Toy Story.  We started watching some Disney favorites this summer.  We watched Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, The Jungle Book and most recently Toy Story.  We've now watched all three Toy Stories LOTS of times, and both of the kids are enamored.  Therefore, Keira's Dora character has been replaced by Buzz Lightyear.  Now, she's constantly "flying" around the house with a very serious expression on her face, saving people.  Scott had a creative brainstorm, and with a little help from some on hand crafts supplies he created a masterpiece -- a Buzz Lightyear costume for Keira.  As you can see from the photos, she adores his awesome creation.

Keeping Cool

In the last week of June, we were hit by a heat wave.  Temps climbed into the 100's all week, although the humidity wasn't too bad, so it could've been worse.  We spent our fair share of time at the pool that week and all summer, but during the heat wave we also beat the heat in our own backyard.  Like last summer, our homemade water slides have been a big hit.  Unlike last summer, Keira got comfortable almost immediately and independently slid over and over again.  Elijah continued to love them this year, and even got adventurous by sliding down on his tummy, face first.

After what seemed like hundreds of times down the hill, both kids were finally ready for a snack and a giggle.

After their snack, they decided to change it up a bit and take a dip in the baby pool.

The next day was hot again, so the kids wasted no time getting back to the water slide.  This time I decided to join them.  So much fun!

Solo Lake House Trip

We had an unusual opportunity this summer.  With everyone else otherwise scheduled or engaged, we got to go up to the Lake House with just the four of us in the middle of June.  While we missed everyone, it was a wonderfully relaxing, laid back trip.  We were able to have our stuff all over the house and make as much noise in the morning as we wanted to.  The kids were unusually independent and spent hours playing by themselves, or together, on the screened porch while Scott and I relaxed or read. 

There were a few exceptions to the laid back agenda for Scott and I.  First, Scott was in school finishing up his master's, so he did have some work to do.  As for me, I ran every morning.  I decided to start running at the beginning of the summer.  It was a spur of the moment decision when I was feeling less than challenged on a walk one day.  I started by mostly walking and running a few minutes, and now I've worked my way up to running for a half an hour straight.  It's been amazing.  So far I've lost about fifteen pounds since my highest weight this winter and I have about four pounds left until I reach my goal weight.  Yay!  While we were on our solo trip at the Lake House I was still alternating between running and walking.  But the Lake House has such gorgeous surroundings that any run up there is wonderful.

Besides beautiful surroundings and relaxing days, one of our highlights of our solo trip were boat rides.  Before that trip Keira has never been fond of "Babo's Boat."  In fact,  on boat ridesshe'd spend most of the time screaming, crying or clinging to me.  She hated the noise.  But, this trip, after some initial hesitation, she realized it wasn't very loud after all.  Once Keira got over her trepidation, we had several wonderfully successful boat rides.  In fact, Keira was so at ease, that we even took a few Nap Rides on the boat.  Once the kids fell asleep, Scott would cut the engine and we'd basically idle around the lake, enjoying our surroundings while the kids snoozed.  We got to watch our beautiful sleeping babies, look at the gorgeous view, and one day we even saw a mama duckie with her baby ducks. 

As for Elijah, he was ecstaticto be spending time on the boat.  We had prepared him for the trip, by saying that we probably wouldn't be able to go on the boat this trip since Keira hated it so much.  We explained that it was hard for Daddy to drive, get us in and out of the docks and navigate by himself while Mommy held a crying girl.  Fortunately, with Keira's happiness on the boat, I was able to help Scott when needed so we could go out successfully on the boat.  Elijah was incredibly relieved as he loves cruising around the lake, looking around and most importantly riding to the marina to get ice cream and feed the ducks.

The surprise highlight of our boating adventures was swimming in the lake.  With Keira previously being so reticent about the boat in general, we never imagined that she'd be interested in stopping the boat and swimming in the open water.  Turns out both kids loved it.  Elijah even jumped in a few times all by himself.  All four of us spent quite a bit of time splashing around.

Keira was so comfortable on the boat by the end of our trip, that one of the kids' favorite things to do was hold on at the bow of the ship as we drove fast over the waves.  They even started dancing around and jumping up and down while holding on.  That was serious progress for a girl who used to cry her way through boat rides!

As you can see, our boat rides were well documented, but of course they weren't the only fun we had, just our most photographed fun.  Besides having fun on the boat, we also enjoyed our time around the house, as I said earlier, and we all enjoyed many happy hours down at the lake side, too.  Both kids had a great time splashing around in the swimming area and playing in the sand.