Long Weekend Vacation

Andrew took both Thursday and Friday off last week, which made for a nice long weekend vacation.

Thursday:

We asked some friends from church (The Woods) if they would like to join us for a day at the lake. It was a beautiful 80 degree sunny day. We had a great time swimming and relaxing on the boat. We also did some wakeboarding and tubing. Evan got up on the second time and Lisa is still in the learning stage. They did really enjoy tubing, but not Callan. He screamed the whole time on getting on the tube and the whole ride. Emi, Elizabeth, and Elisea enjoyed chilling on the pontoon boat with me and Lisa. All the boys swam off the boat, Ethan and Callan did a lot of jumping. It was really nice getting to know them better.Elizabeth and Emi enjoying their juice boxes

Look at that smile

The Woods headed back to Fort Wayne around 6pm with sleeping kids. After dinner Sklyer, Ethan, and Elizabeth tried some more swimming, but it ended up to be more fishing then swimming. Elizabeth fell asleep on the swing with Daddy.
Friday:

We left the lake and headed up to met Jen in Portage. When we got there we all headed to Lake Michigan, to the beach. It was another beautiful day with a great breeze, o.k. more like a wind. The waves were huge, so the kids played in a little puddle area about 12 inches deep. Andrew had a good time wave jumping, Elizabeth and Elisea took a nice nap, Ethan played with Madison (Llyod Daniels girl), and Jen and I sat on the towels and enjoyed the sun. Jen and I took Ethan and Madison in the lake for a smaller version on wave jumping, which they both enjoyed. The water was surprisingly warm. All the kids had fun digging in the sand and splashing in Lake Michigan.

Snack time

Ethan swimming.

Nap Time

Chilling Time

After collected all our stuff (which was a lot of stuff with 4 kids) we headed over to Pam & Llyod's new house. They have a really nice in ground pool and the swim washed off most of the sand in our suits. Ethan spent most of the time jumping and swimming, which he is getting really good at.

After our swim we headed back to Josh and Jens for hamburgers on the grill. We had a nice visit with them after all the kids were crashed for the night.

Saturday:
The morning was a little crazy at Jen's, only because our kids were a little bit wild. It is hard for them to entertain themselves with the small bag of toys I brought for them. So, we decided to head over to the Bass Pro Shop (just about 5 minutes away) before the family reunion. It was a nice diversion. There were boats to play on (I'm not sure if we were supposed to or not), fish to watch, and lots to look at.

After our shopping trip we headed to Valpo for the reunion. There was a small showing but the park was wonderful and the weather couldn't have been better. We had a nice visit with family. The Howard Harris Family ended up staying the longest and we had a good game of softball. It was fun even though the old people beat the kids team. We then started the long trip home, with Elisea crying most of the way, which just drains me.

Sunday:
If that wasn't enough excitement for a weekend we had a church picnic on Sunday night. They kids again enjoyed playing with their friends, playing on the ark, and just running around. It was another nice evening and we all had a great time.

It was a fun long weekend. Just writing about it wears me out!