Home at last

Well, I was going to write about my trip, but Elli won't let me right now. I will try to get down here later while she is napping. I do have time to say that it was a really nice trip, the weather was awesome. We had a great time, missed Daddy, but had a really good time. Elli loved the beach, as you can see in this first picture...I'll post other ones later. :) She was pretty cute!

Here's one of the two of us that turned out okay:

I'll get back about the trip later. We're home!

My last day at Pier 1 is Thursday! Woohoo!!!!

Last night as the whole family

This last evening together as the whole family, we all played together outside a little while this evening. We found a little red wagon that was buried back in the 'second' garage. E just LOVED it! I think that this is something that we need to look into getting for this little girl. She ditched the red car and seriously enjoyed the wagon. As you can tell in these pictures:

She's been teething this week - can you tell?

Then we played a little wiffle ball. Since my legs don't look too gelatinous in this picture, I decided to post myself in it. She did pretty well just playing with the kids, swinging the bat, throwing the ball. She knew what to do! She's so smart. :)

More pictures

We've just been doing the same 'ol stuff lately.

Went out for ice cream:
Looking at the moon:Elli's favorite stretch: She likes Uncle Dave now...he's reading their favorite book to her "Goodnight Moon" :
All the kids reading. Elli put herself up there on Josh's lap. She LOVES Josh:

We went out on the boat for lunch today - it was a lot of fun. I had an incredible hamburger...mmmmmmmm. But, I had some bad hair. Short, wet hair + windy boat ride = awesome bangs:


Maybe somethine exciting later. I am done for the day. Too much sun and swimming makes me sleepy. That's right - I went swimming today and it was stinkin' freezing. I didn't last long. :)

Yo-Ho!

Yesterday was kindof a fun, relaxing day. I wish I wasn't so afraid of hurting myself since the accident, because I would have gone water skiing...it was beautiful.

Elli after a shower with straight hair:

How I started my afternoon - I am actually replacing one that I knocked off of the wall and broke the frame of earlier this week. This is punishment :) I am not crazy about it, but it is just the beginning (in case you can't tell - it's 2 black bears, well, it will be):

Then I headed to the dock and laid around for a while with Joy and Amanda while the boys played on the water in the innertube:

Saw a pirate ship -which Elli just LOVED to wave at and say "Hi boat!" & "Bye boat!"

Then yesterday evening we went to a Lumberjack show. It was impressive. I don't think any one of the "lumberjacks" were over 24 years old. They did all sort of stuff- log rolling, axe throwing, chainsaw races, 60 foot high tree climbs, and other things. We learned that the lumberjack greeting of old is/was Yo-ho! So we said that a lot last night. It was fun.

Now, the guy on the left has won gold medals in the Superjack competitions on ESPN. He raced this other guy up to the top of these 60 foot poles with just the ropes and spikes on their shoes. Guy on the left gave the guy on the right a half-tree-head-start and still climbed the pole and was half-way down before the guy on the right even started coming down. It took lefty like 10 seconds...if that. It was pretty crazy.

Elli ofcourse stayed home with Grandma and Grandpa and was a perfect angel...which she is ofcourse when I am not around. They had a good time too.

And as I type this, there is a bald eagle fishing in the lake, skimming the water....how cool is that?!

Today we swim

Well, I haven't blogged because I've not taken pictures - and what fun is a vacation update without pictures? Not much fun at all, that's what I thought.

Let's see - Oh yeah...I went swimming! It was so hot and humid I couldn't do anything else. The other day Joy, the kids, and myself decided to swim to "the point". It was okay except that it was cloudy (it cleared when when we got out - ofcourse) and very windy, so there were a lot of waves which made it a little harder to swim. It's about twice the length of Jackson Pool to the point, so we had a good workout. I wore my wetsuit ofcourse.

Yesterday, we went to church (made me appreciate mine) and went out for brunch...my favorite meal. I had thick slices of french toast....mmmmm.......Elli enjoyed all the syrup and pancakes and all that as well. Mike shared his hash browns...so sweet :) Then we pretty much just played around the house. Elli didn't nap until late, so she was up really late, thus today - I am sleepy.
But I got in the water anyway. I tried to get Elli in again, and she did better than the last time...but it still was really cold, so we got out right away. We went for a little boat ride while Joy skiied. Elli was not crazy about that at all. She was sleepy (she wouldn't nap again) and the noise of the boat kindof scared her a little. We came back, she cried when Mike jumped in to swim with the kids, I brought her up and rocked her to sleep.
Here she is, not so excited to be in the life jacket:
Us in the boat:
I meant to post a video of Elli dancing with Amanda - but I uploaded this one instead. I couldn't see what I was posting and just guessed....oh well. Here we are in the airport in Detroit. They had a tunnel that takes you from one part of the airport to the other and we spent a lot of time in it because Elli LOVED it. We were playing and wasting time...it was pretty fun.

More 4th pics

Here are some more pictures from yesterday. Mike played out on the water - I rested. I thought it was still too cold, so I stayed in...and I was okay with that.

Mike and Josh out on the tube:

Mike knee boarding and wake boarding:

The goings on

Yesterday was another restful day. Here's the lovely view from my bedroom window...isn't it awesome?
We really just hung around the house. It was warm - but not too warm, so I laid around the dock with my jacket on some of the time. Joy and I enjoyed a few free moments and sat on the dock and read and watched the crazy people out on the lake. They were crazy because the water was close to freezing into a giant ice cube- it was so cold - and they were still in it. Take my husband for example, one of the crazies - he did eventually get out and dry:Here I am, dry, and not realizing I am frying my shins and knees. I found out later. What's vacation without a sunburn?
We had s'mores last night, and ofcourse I had to let Elli try one - well, a marshmallow anyways. I think she enjoyed it. It could have been a little too sweet. She only ate part of one - that's all she wanted.

Here's my niece Amanda and I enjoying our s'mores:

Today is the 4th, so there is a parade- I won't be going because it is interfering with E's lunch and nap time. Oh well. I won't really be missing standing in the sun and over heating. It is a good time to hang out with the family and all that, though. Maybe next year :) We haven't decided if we are going out on the boat to watch fireworks or not. I probably won't...well, I might. We'll see.

It's supposed to be a beautiful day! So maybe I'll swim - HA!

An evening on the dock

It was a nice evening yeasterday...not cold, but warm enough to put on a little jacket and play your little heart out. So we did. I stole Elli away from the fun to snap some photos of her on the dock. They turned out pretty nice, I think.

I'm not sure what we will get into today. It is going to be sunny with no rain, light winds, 74 - not really warm enough to swim, but okay to walk around the street shops or play in the yard...we'll see.

I am looking out the window while I am typing this - it's only 9:15 not even 60 degrees and there are people boating and riding jet skiis.....nuts.

It's beautiful up here.

A little update

My back hurts so bad today!!!! Ugh - I hurt. Maybe I shouldn't have played badmitten (I have know idea how to spell that), but I need to have fun sometime - right?!?!

Anyhow yesterday was a fun day -

Here's me in my wetsuit - I look awesome (HA!)

The water was freezing!!!! Elli wanted to play in it, until she felt it. Then she wanted nothing to do with the river....we snapped a shot anyway.

So being the smart mommy that I am, I filled a little pool earlier while she was napping and let it warm up - so E really enjoyed that...so did everyone else apparently. There wasn't much room left in that warm water pool for poor little Elli.

So she played in her "ride". She begs to do that! She and Amanda take turns pushing eachother up and back the driveway. It's cute :)

She also makes them pull her in the wagon...

Here's proof that E likes her Uncle Dave - she won't play with him if I'm around.

We had pizza out on the pontoon boat last night. There's a pizza place where you can dock your boat and get pizza - we call ahead and eat on the water. It is a fun time - especially nice when it's warm outside like it was yesterday.

Here's E and myself on the boat ready to go!

Amanda, Mike, and Josh playing with the magna doodle and enjoying eachother - Elli ofcourse in the middle of it all!Here's most of the family in the back of the pontoon (I think hiding from kiddie-land in the front) -or- there was only room back there :)

Ready to go home and go to bed - that was an exhausting trip trying to entertain a wanna-be 2 year old and keep her from jumping over the side of the boat....

I miss everyone!