Stateside

Hello all.  We are officially home for our Holiday break.  We have hit the ground running and barely stopped to catch our breath.

We arrived on the 7th of July and began getting ready for a week trip to the lake with my family.  We had my sisters and their families, my grandmother, aunts and more of the girls' cousins at a house we rented on Lake Martin.  We had the ski boat and the house had a slide off the dock into the water.  So we had a fun filled week of swimming, sliding, tubing and skiing.  We purchased trainer skis this year and most of the girls tried to ski. 

Our cousin Whitney (10 yrs) learned quickly and continued to ski several times a day each day.    

Taylor (8 yrs) got up twice her last day there and is on the verge of having it down pat.  

Samantha (5 yrs) tried twice a day but Grandpa only got one chance each time. She easily put on the skis but then Aunt Carrie (who is in the water coaching) informed the adults in the boat that the skis were too heavy for Samantha to hold up.  Of course, this is only a difficulty until she gets on top of the water, but now Samantha has heard Carrie say this and is dragging behind the boat yelling: "the skis are too heavy, the skis are too heavy, the skis are too heavy." The skis WERE wobbling from side to side, but this should only be a difficulty until she gets on top of the water.  So I told Grampa to keep going and as soon as they were straight for a second, I said "GO" and he gunned the engine.  Samantha popped right out of the water......sort of.  We're still not so sure exactly how she was doing it.  The skis were on top of the water but all you could see in through the water as the skis sliced through it was Samantha's face.  It was perfectly framed just above her skiis.  The best we can figure, she was sitting on the back of the skis, completely folded in half.  Grampa looked back and said "I don't know what she's doing, but she's doing it".  She went at least 100 yards before she fell over to the side.  She came up all smiles and when asked if she wanted to try again, she replied...."no" very matter of factly.  

Kaitlyn (8 yrs) worked her way up to trying.  The first day she was just jumping in to cool off after Whitney finished skiing and her Aunt Carrie convinced her to try on the skis.  When asked to hold the rope, she became very panicked and refused to even touch it.  That afternoon, she put the skis on again and let the boat drag her slowly through the water.  The next morning she went the next step and tried to get up.  Her fears slowly melted away and she continued to try throughout the week but couldn't maintain her grip on the rope long enough to get up.  I am so proud of her for conquering her fears.  We weren't sure whether or not to buy the skis this year, but I'd say we definitely got our money's worth out of them. It brought back many fun memories of all of us mommies  and daddies learning together 15 or so years ago. 

Here are our boating beauties.  (L to R) Whitney (10), Lindsey (4), Madi (6), Samantha (5)

When the kids were taking breaks from skiing, they loved to tube with Aunt Carrie.  "Big Bertha" made many rounds on our corner of the lake.  Samantha loved it, but notice the death grip she has on Aunt Carrie's life jacket  :)

Olivia and her Daddy Swimming.  She had so much fun with her Daddy in the water.  She spent hours here while the other girls took turns in the boat and water.

Nate (2) was too small to join the water sports, but he was not about to miss out on being in the boat.  Everywhere the boat went, Nate went.  He loved watching the girls ski and tube.  Whenever we would stop to change skiers or tubers, he immediately began saying, "again.....again....again".  The first day, he also wanted to ski and tube himself and repeatedly pointed and said "Mine".  But he changed his mind when Aunt Carrie offered to take him on the tube.  Despite his change of heart,  he remained the dedicated spectator.

"Daddyvator" 

 The kids loved going down the slide, but there wasn't a ladder anywhere near it on the dock.  They had to swim practically to the bank to get out and get in line again.  This was a pretty good distance so someone came up with Brad's shoulders as the elevator.  He'd go under water, whichever child would put their feet on his shoulders and he would stand up.  Then they were high enough to climb directly onto the dock.  

Well, we had a great week and packed up on Friday and headed home.  As soon as we arrived home, we unpacked, changed all the sheets, sent mom, dad and Mimi off to Birmingham and got ready for our cousins weekend to begin.  More on that in the next installment.:)

Hope you all are doing well.  We'll be in touch.

Love,

Zookeeper