Weekday adventures

My mom, step dad and two of my sisters rented a house on a lake this past week. So, I get a call on Wednesday and it was my youngest sister telling me I should come up that night and stay over until Thursday. Sounded great!

After getting the ok to take Thursday off of work I get the kids bathed, fed, bags packed, movies for the ride (since it was a 2 1/2 hour drive), sleeping bags, pillows, blankets, and beach stuff and pack it all into the van. Ready!

We leave at 6:45pm, make 2 quick stops and then are on the road. It was a loooooooong drive!

We finally get to the house at 9:20pm and we're all pretty tired. By this point the kids are past sleepy and into over tired, but they are hungry so we figure food is good. My mom tries to convince me that Cocoa Puffs are a great idea to feed the kids (she has a hard time saying "no" to them...I don't). I convince her that isn't the best option and they can have Special K or something else, but it has to be healthy! They choose Special K.

Finally, I get the kids ready for bed and we go lay down. By this time it's 11:00pm and I just a wee bit tired. I love that word "wee". Anyway, after saying our prayers and me singing songs they finally fall asleep. So, then I shower and get ready for bed.

All is going well until my sisters start laughing. By this time it's 12:00am...way past my bedtime! I'm already lacking sleep due to bad dreams (that's another post for another day). Then they whip out the camera and it's all over from there.


Of course my camera comes out and we start snapping away. They were scary, sleepy, silly pictures...and my sister, Kelsey, told me they will be locked in a vault never to be seen by any human...ever...under penalty of blackmail (they have pretty horrible pictures of me too...very embarrassing). Moving on....

The next day we were a bit on the grumpy side.

We were tired, my kids were cranky, but we made it through breakfast with a few smiles.

Ok, so I was alone in the smile department for this picture

Kelsey and Kaileah took Afton kayaking a little bit later.

They came back 10 minutes later because it was misting harder than it had been.

The kids were still a bit testy so we put them in their swimsuits and life jackets.

(Don't they look so miserable?)

We decided to to swimming. It was 55 degrees out, grey and misty. It was lots of fun though!

The kids played in the sand with all the toys


We went swimming
(Caleb, me and my Mom)
Kelsey nailed me in the head with mud!


Good times!

After we got back to the house we put on dry clothes and had hot chocolate and lunch. Then the kids went upstairs for their movie and quiet time. I sat with my coffee and downloaded all the pictures I could from my sister and moms memory cards.

After that I packed up the van and got us ready to go home.

The trip home wasn't has bad, probably because it was brighter and I wasn't driving when I'm usually in bed! Makes a difference.

The kids, of course, were exhausted.

Caleb fell asleep 40 minutes into our 2 1/2 hour ride home.

Afton made it 1 1/2 hours.

Sleeping beauties!

Starbucks signs lured me off the highway twice only to fool me into driving for what seemed like miles, then I had to turn around and get back on the highway...with no coffee to show for it! They like to do that, you know! Tease. I cried.

Finally, we get home. I looked back on the past 24 hours and thought, "This was fun." I'm glad we went. The kids had fun. Mama didn't get the time she hoped for, but I have a lot of funny pictures instead. All in all...good times were had by all!