Lake House Opening Day

Hello readers! I come to you from the other side of a lake house trip and the Mad Men season finale. Both wore me out, so I couldn't write this post yesterday- I tried, but stared futilely at my laptop for about 15 minutes before snapping it shut and taking my wine to the bathtub with an old book instead. It was a good decision at the time, but those lake house pictures don't post themselves! And while I know you've seen a lot of lake house pictures, you haven't seen Cora on a boat, and that means you are missing out.

I mean, look at this face. She is so skeptical of what is happening right now.

You guys, we are in a weird car driving on top of water. Wtf.

The big kids had no such concerns. Their faces are the opposite of concerned.

My parents bought a new float to pull behind the boat and jetski that had two little seats built in. Landon tried it out first with Uncle Eric. He switched to his concerned face for much of the ride, particularly when Eric made the float bounce on the waves, but immediately declared the experience to be "AWESOME" upon the re-boarding of the boat.

Claire was next and refused to ride without a licensed adult, so into the muddy post-floods-of-Houston water I went. Yay? We talked Claire up to a roaring 12 mph and I adore how this picture makes it look like we're going so much faster than we are.

Cora was all, whatevs, I can tube way better than that.

Claire bounced back in the boat, announcing that she loved tubing and was very brave and it's so good to do things that make you a little scared.

Something we reminded her of a few minutes later when we suggested the two kids sit in the tube alone behind the boat. Live every week like it's shark week, kids. Probably not the best motivational phrase for tubing.

They did great though! Landon took his job as official hand-sign communicator to the grown-ups in the boat (the dry and happy grown-ups!) and spent the entire tube ride talking. We couldn't hear what he was saying, but his mouth never stopped moving. Claire did not talk, as she was too busy holding on to the tube handles for dear life and keeping an eye out for sharks while they were pulled around the lake as slow as my dad's very fast boat could motor. She was delighted with her bravery for the rest of the trip.

Again, Cora was unimpressed.

We pulled back in to the dock for lunch and I made everyone take a family picture. I never get these because no one ever takes pictures but me, but magic happened and we got a pretty good one.

Don't even think about taking that water cup from Cora. She will cut you.

Despite the hilarity of her skeptical sailor face, she actually seemed to enjoy the boat and definitely enjoyed the heck of out of lake house opening weekend.

She marched all over the yard, setting out on adventures, not caring in the slightest if responsible adults were following closely behind.

She was totally delightful the whole time we were there- squealing and smiling and running and being held by everyone whenever she wanted. My brother growled at her on Saturday afternoon, just for fun, and she burst into tears and refused to make eye contact with him for the rest of the trip, but what's life without a personal nemesis? She now has hers.

The kids also enjoyed fishing, swimming, rope swinging, running, jet skiing, baseball playing, soccer ball kicking, beach walking, and a lot of eating. Landon literally never stopped moving for 12 hours on Saturday. He's not a hyper kid, but he does have an endless well of energy for physical activities. I'm picturing a little JP at his age and it makes me tired.

Tex took lots of naps for him. And speaking of naps, possibly the most exciting things about this trip to the lake house was the two new sets of bunk beds Papa and Gigi got for the kids room.

The beds were so exciting that if it wasn't for the aforementioned non-stop physical activity, I'm not sure they would have gotten any sleep at all. Even still, we put them in bed a full 30 minutes early last night and they were out in minutes.

JP is crazy busy right now with summer hiring, pool managing, and swim lesson registration, and he had to work 80% of the time we were at the lake and then still worked till 1 a.m. this morning to make up for it, and for me there's packing and laundry and cramming the usual weekend errands into one power trip on Sunday afternoon, but it's so worth it.

I love lake house weekends.