Weekend Fun

Well, I broke photo download record today. I put 436 pictures on my computer from this past weekend. We went to my aunt and uncle's lake house on Lake Oconee with our friends the Davidsons Friday through Sunday. They have four kids too, spaced apart like ours but they started a few years before we did. Their girls are some of Amelia's favorite friends. We had a blast this weekend swimming in the pool, riding the waverunner, playing cards, and watching the end of the Olympics. James particularly enjoyed the "frilly froo-froo boys," as he calls them, aka men's diving.

We left after the Davidsons finished school on Friday. It was raining as we pulled up to the house at about 5:00 PM, as we were getting the remnants of Hurricane Fay. The kids played hide and seek and a host of other loud, active games until bedtime, and then popped up and down out of bed for the next hour. We adults played a heated game of Farkle. (This is a great game if you've never played it. All you need are six dice, then Google "Farkle" to get a set of rules and how to score it.)

The next morning dawned bright and sunny...we wish. Actually it was cloudy with off and on sprinkles, but it was fun anyway. The kids jumped between the hot tub and pool all day, and the adults got in all the swimming we wanted too. There were two waverunners but only one would start, so we took turns riding kids up and down the lake. Turns out hurricanes produce wind too, so it was a pretty choppy day to be on the lake. It was still fun though! My mom and dad joined us around lunch time and stayed until the next day with us. That night the kids didn't give us a hard time about going to bed at all. I knew how they felt, I played hard all day too and was too tired to even put in a decent showing at Phase 10. Nothing like nodding off over a hand of cards.

Sunday there were breaks in the clouds and it was a little less windy. We played in the pool and at the lake again all morning and early afternoon. By the end of the weekend Amelia was swimming across the entire pool and Maggie (their 6 year old) was jumping off of the diving board and swimming across without a float, a first for her. She even did a perfect dive off of the board one time. Shannon was trying to swim without a float, but can't seem to remember that he has to move his arms. He kicks like crazy and goes straight to the bottom. Avery is a mad man in the water, and kicks all around the pool in his ring and arm floats. He likes jumping off the board and goes under before popping up like a buoy, laughing and snorting.

All good things have to come to an end, so we left about 4:30 to head back to the real world. It's so nice being away from home even briefly because I don't think about all the things I SHOULD be doing, I just played with kids all weekend. I also ate at least my body weight in food, we had enough to feed a small country. We stopped by our friends the Spells on the way home, to see off their college freshman daughter Katie. She will be studying in Ireland for a sememster and will return home in December to start classes at UGA in January. Gee, what a rough way to start college!

I'm going to attempt to sort through all the pictures to post a few of our weekend.

Here goes Avery!













Kids in "the little hot pool," as they called it.



Elizabeth enjoyed the weekend too.


Ruth Davidson, just shy of her 5th birthday

Bennett Davidson, nearly 8

Maggie prepares to take someone out with a bat.

Lydia turned three in March. Isn't she cute?





Yep, this is me.


James practices his famous "Kung Fu Dive." I give it a 9.


James and Shannon. Shannon informed me a few weeks ago that for his birthday he would like "a waverunner, wrapped up in a present." Guess we'll get him a lake to go with that!

Amelia, me, and Maggie

Avery kept saying, "Go fast!" He cried and pretty much pitched a fit when his turn was over.

Oh yeah, one last highlight from the weekend. This may be too much information for those either not yet in or no longer in the phase of life with a kid who wears diapers, but Avery used the potty this weekend. He was very proud of himself, and I was ready to do a back flip and throw a party. Okay, it wasn't THAT great, but it would be extremely wonderful if he went ahead and potty trained, since we're back to two in diapers. He's not quite two yet, so that would put him an entire year ahead of when Shannon potty trained...and would probably save us several hundred dollars this year! The photo below is of him this morning here at the house. The pink princess helmet was his idea, I'm not sure why he needed it on the potty...perhaps I don't want to know!


Today was back to life as usual. It rained ALL DAY so we stayed inside ALL DAY. We definetely need the rain though, so I'm not complaining. Tomorrow is playgroup, so we'll get out then. I'm off to bed in the meantime!