Adults Only

This past Saturday our community group (aka church small group) got together...with NO kids...and NOT at one of our houses. I'm pretty sure it's the first time we've done anything social together like this since Julia's been born, meaning it's been at least 15 months. With all the children in our group, we're usually at someone's house so the kiddos can sleep without us all having to get babysitters. This was such a treat to enjoy dinner and ice cream just us adults!

travis, andrea, jarret, katie, karla, dustin, jill, & aaron

Lake Getaway

We just spent an amazing 4-day weekend at Lake Palestine with Jarret's family. Their extremely generous family friends allowed us to use their lake house while they were vacationing! Their lake house is amazing, with tons of room for all of us to spread out, a great dock for fishing and keeping our boat there for immediate access, and an amazing view of the lake! Look how calm the lake was in the morning and how pretty with the early sun coloring the sky and water.

We played hard on the water, but relaxed too. Jarret and I managed to nap two days while Julia was napping, we raced the kids in Mario Kart, and played our beloved game of Rummikub. We laughed a lot and had stories to tell of Jacob falling off the boat dock and into the lake (thank God he was wearing his life jacket) and Julia giving her lovey Elsie (a pink stuffed cow) a very thorough "bath" in the toilet when mom and dad had taken their eyes off her.

All the kids rode the jet skis and the tube. Julia seems to have no fear of anything water-related yet!
Wildlife! When you don't have pets of your own, I guess it's extremely exciting to see someone else's.
The kids loved riding around on the golf cart (it's a lake community that's also on a golf course, so everyone drives their personally owned carts when they're driving throughout the neighborhood). Kendall, Caden, and Jacob all take turns driving the cart. We nearly fell off the road only a handful of times, especially when Uncle Jar Jar decided he was going to actually trust Jacob to steer. Hello? He's not even 2.5 years old yet!
Down by the dock (you can see their big house in the background)

Kendall loves holding Julia. Jarret and I both remarked about how wonderful it was to have Julia entirely entertained by Kendall, Caden and Jacob and how much she adores playing with them.

Julia enjoyed playing by the windows that look out onto the porch balcony. Aunt Erin was sitting out on the porch, while Julia was indoors. Julia walked up to the glass to "talk" to Aunt Erin, she pressed her face up to the glass, and then I see Erin hysterically laughing and telling me to grab my camera. This is what it looked like from Erin's point of view:

Undoubtedly, the worst picture of our child
Ah, back to our sweet baby girl!

The adults and kids alike enjoyed all sorts of junk food. Julia had her first powdered donut on the first morning we were there, and then she wanted them each morning for breakfast. She would spot the big bag of donuts and would carry the entire thing over to us. She also enjoyed a couple of cupcakes, as you can clearly see!

Could her eyes be any bigger?!

On our last night there, we took an evening sunset cruise around the lake which was so relaxing to just sit and enjoy, rather than beating up our bodies with water sports.

Julia with Jacob, who was her best friend all weekend.

The cousins riding up front

A great picture of the sunset; a not-so great picture with my hair flying all around with the boat in motion.

A little better of me, but you can't see the sunset as well.

On our last day there, we tried to get a couple of group shots. With all the kids, it's extremely difficult to get one where everyone is looking at the camera. This is the best we managed to get despite the insane number of pictures we took!

Random Photo Time

Julia has fallen in love with the concept that someone can point this camera-thingy in her face, push a button, and then she can run around and see herself on the screen. So on Monday night we had a fun family night of taking random pictures for the sole purpose of seeing Julia's sweet smile and silly laugh once she viewed the picture. Well, several of them actually turned out cute or funny enough to share.

This started a series of hilarious photos. Jarret claimed his eyes were open, but I said we needed to try again:

So we tried again. Still no luck.

I say, "Jarret, you have to keep your eyes open!" He most certainly did. When I saw the picture, I laughed so hard for so long I was literally crying. Julia liked the picture but she didn't understand why mommy and daddy were in hysterical laughter.

Julia being uber sweet and laying down on me. This is about the only way we ever get any form of a hug that she initiates, rather than us forcing out of her.

Hmm, hug time is apparently over because she realized it would be more fun to hit daddy on the head.

We tell her no hitting and I show her how to touch gently. So now she is ever so sweetly stroking daddy's head instead!