Vacation Mishaps, Lessons, and Beauty

Lesson #1 also goes with mishap #1: Remove thumb from path of very sharp knife before slicing into watermelon or you will have to live with a finger that looks like this and not go in the water for 4 days:

I thought for SURE I'd need stitches. I've never cut myself quite like that before. Turns out, it comes in handy for a Daddy to also have a nursing background :)

Here's some beauty for you. Well, it's beauty to me anyway. My folks' cottage neighbors were probably taking pity on my parents and their 'challenged' daughter who was staring at tree bark for so long!

Thomas learned something new during our vacation...he started pulling up (as long as he can find something short enough to pull up on). The way he stands cracks me up:

This also cracked me up...here we went all the way to Wisconsin for vacation, and I wind up peeling potatoes from my great state of Idaho. The joke around here is that they ship all the good Idaho potatoes out of state - proof!



Grandma and Papa bought sweet little kid-sized Adirondack chairs for the grand kids. They come a plain, unfinished wood. I painted Sammy's this trip:


She loved it :)


One not so fun thing about vacation is when the baby decides to wake at 5:30 AM every single morning. But I guess if he hadn't, I wouldn't have gotten this sunrise shot of the lake:

Little turd. Good thing he's so dang cute, or I might have to send him back ;)


One of the kids' favorite things to do is to "drive" the boat with Papa. They get to steer, and most importantly, honk the horn. Even Thomas got in on the action this trip:

Here I am with 3 of my kiddos waiting for some firecrackers to go flying...I mean staying safely and legally on the ground. Sammy would have been in the picture too, but I'm pretty sure she was hiding under a bed when she heard someone say "fireworks". She says they're "too caaareeey!"

Another favorite activity is dropping anchor in the middle of the lake and swimming. Sammy was so brave, she got right in with me! I thought for sure it would be "too carey" for her.


Mama's little sweet pea. Man I love this little girl.

Here's another vacation lesson for you: sleep with mosquito spray on. Never mind the supposed dangers of DEET. If you don't do it, your legs might look like Clara's did when she woke up. I count 16 on the back of her legs...and she had them to match on the front of her legs, her arms, and her face too. I knew she was sweet, but DANG!


One more lesson (and mishap): when you ask your 5 year old if she has sunscreen on, don't believe her when she says "Yes". I'm sure all the sunscreen applications just ran together in a blur in her mind...I don't think she intentionally lied. But she sure looked like a lobster after spending the day doing this with no sunscreen on! I felt terrible :(

Have you ever looked at a dragonfly?

I mean, really looked? Beautiful. And a little creepy in a buggy/alieny/don't land on me kind of way. But mostly beautiful.

That's it for today. I'm not on vacation anymore...housework calls :)