Awesome Weekend!

After being stuck at home all week with the flu and a respiratory infection, it was time to hit the water Saturday evening!!!!!  Bethany, Tim, and Izzy came over and we headed out to the lake with no agenda, timeline, or plans... just intentions of enjoying the evening and the fellowship!

After suiting up the kiddos, smothering them in lotion, and swaddling them in their jackets, we headed out in search of a place to swim.  Now, as a kid, I grew up swimming out in the middle of big deep lakes.  My dad would throw and anchor and we would jump off the boat again and again with no worries of hitting the bottom (or no thoughts of stepping on the bottom - yuck).  This hasn't been possible with a kiddo yet because Nathan wasn't wild about being in his baby float from last summer, or the new baby float from FL (well, we weren't wild about it because he's figured out how to lean far enough forward to get out of it), or life jacket out in the deep.  So we've been confined to the shore line with the little fish and the sandy/muddy/leafy bottom to stand on... that is until this weekend!  We tried Izzy in her jacket (which she hated) and put Nathan in this swimsuit tire float contraption pictured here.  It didn't fit him a month ago, but this weekend... PERFECT.  He floats low enough in the water to practice his swimming, but high enough to be safe.  See?
Look, another happy daddy!  This is Tim, Izzy's daddy.
Now, he's even happier!
After Izzy got in a better swimming situation, the kiddos had a blast.  Nathan AMAZED us with his ability to use his arms AND legs in the water to steer and propel him self great distances.  He has to work to keep his mouth out of the water at the same time.  He swam about 75 feet to the boat with zero help from us!  Crazy!  Kiddo is a fish!  After jumping a few times, he discovered he could do "ring around the rosie" in the water.  "Izzy? Rosie?"
"Beesa? Rosie?"  Bethany joins in the rosie-ing but that is not enough for Nathan.
He also asks Tim and daddy to join in and that was plum hysterical!  Shortly after this pic, he also had to have mommy join this ever growing circle of circling people!
After so much swimming, it was time for what I love... a smooth slalom ski - that is until the water got huge wakes in it - but that simply lead to entertainment for all as I rode the bucking bronco waves on one ski... and crashed.
Kiddos were watching intently apparently (as I found this picture in between the ones of me skiing).
We ate an awesome dinner on the water, did some more swimming, and then had great intentions of finishing off the evening with two kiddos asleep on the floor of the boat and 4 adults enjoying some hang out time on the back of the boat and in the water.  Well, the quickly approaching clouds told me this might not be the evening we expected.  Then came the thunder and lightening.  Mind you there are 6 of us huddled under the top on the boat to try not to get struck by lightening... the waves are crazy big... and it's starting to rain.  This is so funny to all of us for some reason and we're all in such great moods!  Again, LAID back evening continues!  We fly back to the dock, get the kiddos and preggo mommy safe in a van, and me and the daddies proceed to get all of our stuff out of the boat in the driving rain, loud thunder and ever present lightening - all the while laughing at these circumstances and having a ball.  It took about 15 minutes to do this and by the time we got finished and to the van, we were all so drenched (and wearing our "dry" clothes after our last swim) that we each had to ride home in nothing but a towel!  Soooo funny!!!!!  When we got to our house, got clothes and put wet clothes into the dryer, it was almost 9pm and the dancing began.
Yep, kiddo dancing.  Both of these guys are in bed between 730 and 8 every night, but not Saturday night!  They danced the night away eating gerber "cookies" and drinking milk until at least 1030.  They were so happy, why not!  :)
It's hard to tell in the pic above but Nathan was actually trying to get Izzy to dance with him.  Below, he's offering a dancing hand to Bailey... or is he...
yep, on closer inspection of this picture, I find that he's really feeding the dog!  Stinker!
So our fabulous night with Tim and Bethany ended near 11pm and it was a great night!

Apparently Chad wanted more boating because we called our neighbors (at 11:15pm) to see if they wanted to go out Sunday morning (heathens I know) for a boat adventure for a few hours before Chad had to leave for a meeting at noon.  They agreed and were ready to leave this morning (Sunday) at 9am.  Our 3 hour adventure turned into a 6 hour adventure complete with skiing, wake boarding, knee boarding, yummy food, hilarious dives, tons of swimming and dunking, and an overall fabulous day had by all 9 of us (4 adults and 5 kiddos)!  

We got home just in time for Chad to head to a meeting and me to put Nathan down for a power nap and me to get ready for a picnic with our Church!  What a great way to end a fabulous weekend!  It was a lot of fun and great to see Nathan and Izzy playing again!
Great food and fellowship!
But the evening wouldn't be complete without these fun pictures of Izzy!



Or these pictures of my aspiring graffiti artist...
and certainly not without mommy catching a tiny frog and showing it to Nathan.  He said "baby frog" and I reminded him to be gentle... so he kissed the frog - hence the blurriness of the picture.  No kidding, he kissed it...  not once...
but twice.  Then requested that Izzy kiss the frog.  
Not knowing any better, she happily kissed the little creature.
Shortly there after, Nathan kissed the frog a third time, it hopped out of my hand, he "draw frog yes" (draw on frog? draw a frog?  draw around the frog?  who knows)... and then in a split second stepped on the sweet little creature and said "mushroom?"  Random?  Not so much.  In the yard, we often get mushrooms and to keep Nathan from picking them up and eating them, we've turned it into a game to stomp on them.  Apparently this frog looked like a mushroom to Nathan.  So sorry little froggy!!!
"Splat splat went the little green frog one day..."