Just When You Thought There Couldn't Possibly Be Any More Vacation Pictures . . .

This past week we had the chance to go to Cumberland Lake with some dear friends - Marshall and Becky Gipe and their 2 kiddos, Rhett and Halli. We've never done any kind of boating as a family (paddle boating doesn't count!) or spent much time in un-chlorinated water, so this was a real treat for us. The best part may have been that the kiddos actually slept until 8:00 at least 2 mornings out of the three we were there!

It was wonderful: we had all day to do whatever we felt like doing. We spent the majority of both days out on the boat or in the water, came back and ate a late dinner, and stayed up late talking or watching movies. And it was fun seeing the kiddos have a blast. Rachel actually got up the guts to jump into the water from the dock and get her whole head wet. Zekers just turned into a little fish. Karis loved tubing at approximately 2 miles per hour. And Malachi . . . . well, he discovered it's just as fun to drool on a boat as anywhere else. He did spend some time in the water and did OK, but the infant life jacket I was so excited to find at a garage sale this summer, was a complete bomb. By the second day he'd start screaming in protest as soon as he saw it coming.

I received a good dose of humility (humiliation??) when I tried to get up (about 7 times) on a slalem ski. I kept telling myself, "Come on, you gave birth to 4 children. You can do this!" My little self-pep-talk didn't work. The longest I ever stayed up was about 5 seconds before wiping out (with the utmost grace and poise, of course). After that, I stuck to swimming and tubing. It seemed much safer, and there was also the little fact that my arms, back and legs turned into Jell-O for about 3 days.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that we actually witnessed a police chase on water - flashing lights and the whole shebang! It just seems ludicrous to me that someone would try to outrun a police boat - I mean, there's really no where to hide and sooner or later he's just going to run out of gas.

So without further ado, here are . . . . you guessed it - more pictures!! (One of these days I'll actually get some pictures of the adults and not just the kiddos)


The cabin's large screened-in porch, where we ate a lot of our meals
Rachel and Halli
I don't know boating terms, so I'll just call this the "front" of the boat.
Rhett did a little wake-boarding; I included this pic because this was pretty much our view from the boat all day the first day - blue sky, lots of trees and water
Karis had a death grip on the tube
Because of some work being done on the dam at a different arm of the lake, the water level was way lower than normal and will be that way for another 3 years. So to get to the boat, we climbed down a series of stairs, and then made our way over the rocks that are typically covered with water. We were fortunate; we passed several docks made completely inaccessible by the low water level.
Malachi wouldn't go to sleep on the boat, so when we got back around 5:30, this is what I found after he'd taken 1 or 2 sips of his bottle.
Mommy, Malachi, and the hated life jacket
Karis sunning herself on the "back" of the boat
Zekers made some great faces while tubing


On the way back we stopped in Lexington and had lunch with my sis and bro-in-law, Sarah and Anthony, and the kids' cousin Addie. Here is a picture of them and and the disaster of a photo we tried to take of all the kiddos. Maybe someday . . .

We arrived home late Saturday afternoon, and I was reminded what a blessing a washing machine can be. I was able to do several loads of laundry at the cabin, so we had barely any dirty laundry to do when we got home!! Now that's what I call a vacation.