A week has passed with no homage to the recent Labor Day weekend. How could this have slipped my mind? Although the week has held many exciting moments including but not limited to, first day at school, first Awanas meeting (or as Savannah says, Awanasess), Mark and I's date day instead of date night, finding the perfect pair of jeans but paid more than Savannah's school tuition for them (but soooo worth it), MOPs steering team gearing up for another year, and other adventures which I will blog about over the next week, I still must recap last weekend.
We were in town for once. Actually, we were out at the lake and farm but that's as close to staying home as we usually get! Mark and Savannah kicked off the weekend with a trip to the farm friday night to visit Papa, Sherry, and Ace (black Labrador). Her favorite thing to do at the farm? Roll in the sand with Ace. Mission accomplished with the added bonus of dinner.
Saturday we headed back out to the farm to spend some time with our nephew and nieces who were in town for the holiday. From the farm we all packed up with Papa's boat and zipped off to the lake (if you can call packing up 4 kids, 4 adults, and a boat "zipping off"). To set the scene, I must tell you that I suspect Papa's boat is older than me. That said there was a little difficulty getting it started. My 7 year old niece was sure we would sink before we got out of the small harbor. That would be my preference of course, that if we had to sink, I would like it be closer to land. I however, did not mention this to her at the time.
Once the nursing home-ready boat got warmed up, she did fine, for a while anyway. We found a nook for the kids to swim in and they took turns all jumping off the back of the boat into the water with much splashing and a few squeals. Savannah tried endlessly to swim away from the group and her cousins would have to swim out and haul her back in. Don't you wish you knew what went on in the head of preschoolers? Was she trying to reach the other side of the lake? Was she chasing a boat or maybe she spotted another family that looked more fun. Who knows?
Now that everyone had cooled off, it was time to throw our God-given children into an inflatable raft tied to the back of the boat with ski rope that I am guessing was the same age of the boat. Once this set-up was complete, our goal was to pull them far behind our boat, out of our reach, out of our protection. Smart?
With the 7 year old, 4 year old, and 3 year old Savannah now placed in the raft the engine begins to pick up speed. We look back at them and see all smiles. Then we notice their mouths moving. They are yelling words. What are they trying to tell us? Do they want us to stop or slow down? Oh no, they are yelling, "Faster, faster, faster, faster." And so faster we go.
We watched our babies bounce up and down in the raft (and that was their favorite part, the bouncing over wakes) and they did look like babies out there by themselves. Another boat would have though we had 1 and 2 year olds out there. The rope broke a time or two and we tied it back together and off we went again with the children yelling "faster, faster, faster" all the way.
This ritual filled both Saturday and Sunday. The latter day had the added bonus of meeting Papa and Sherry for a picnic on the lake at a beach, swim area. They girls collected shells, Savannah rolled in the sand, and Papa got in the water in spite of not wearing a swim suit (by that I mean he had on regular clothes, I did not mean he swam in nothing). What a team player.
It was a slow relaxing weekend. Not for Savannah since she missed her nap two days in a row bringing out Mrs. Hyde. But slow and relaxing none the less. Not a bad way to say good-bye to summer.
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