July 4th Weekend

Summer is really speeding up and July started off with a bang. The weekend of the Fourth was so full of activity and fun, that I think we're all still a little worn out. To that end, it has taken me almost two weeks to get the pictures up.

Friday, Kim took the day off so that we could hit the lake for a little pre-holiday weekend skiing. It was an awesome day with flat water and we just about had the lake to ourselves.

Saturday Uncle Stuart and Aunt Jen arrived. Alastair had been on an Uncle Stuart countdown for a full week and started the day making a special welcome sign for him. With guests in the house, we settled in for a full day smoking brisket and hanging out. Man, was that some good brisket!

Baby Stella gets some new wheels

Saturday was also a special day for Emery, who inherited a baby stroller that Alastair's friend Ella outgrew. Thanks Audrey! This is now Emery's favorite possession and Baby Stella is always on the go.

Sunday we played hookey from church and headed back out to the lake. With friends finally in the boat, I was delighted to be able to take some non iPhone pictures for a change.

Stuart and Jen

It was fitting that Stuart was our first victim guest, since he was out with us all the time when we had the boat in Austin. Boy, did we have some wild weekends on the lake! We spent one Memorial Day waiting for the ramp at Mansfield Dam to reopen after helicopters dropped divers in to search for a lost jet skier. I may have just stopped peeling from the sunburn I got that day.

Stuart brought his lovely bride Jen with him and brace yourselves, she is five months pregnant in this picture. I know, right? I had to seriously resist the urge to hold her under.

A girl and her crackers

The kids have a blast when we're out and I love that they are growing up on the water the same way I did. I have dim memories of playing under the bow when I was very young and snoozing on Type-IV flotation devices. I also remember wanting, more than anything, for my mother to just stop fishing and let us go home. Thus far, no one has cried to come in yet, so that's a success in my book.

Our favorite bobber

Alastair is a swimming zealot. If we slow the boat to pick up a skier or get the rope straightened out, he has to be restrained so he won't jump back in. On this trip, he got royally sunburned on his face (despite heroic efforts on my part) but nothing on his arms or legs. I puzzled over this for awhile, then remembered that he spent the majority of the day submerged up to his neck. Mystery solved.

Proof!

I was especially excited to have someone else drive for Kim so that I could get a few shots of him skiing. I have tried, while holding Emery, to shoot video before but watching that would result in immediate nausea, so I've been holding out for stills to put on the blog. You're welcome.

Yes, they are related.

Here Kim helps Stuart to stuff his feet into my small wakeboard boots. I am going to be nice and not post pics of him on my lovely pink board. You owe me, Stuart.

More proof. Dad, I told you!

OK, so I'm the big photographer in this family. The downside of that is a disappointing lack of flattering pictures of myself. Now, I could take that to mean that I may not be as great looking as I think I am (as if!) but I choose to think it may be more the photographer's fault. Take this as an example. The photographer gets the shot just before I launch off this wake but totally misses the full revolution tantrum and the perfect landing. It's disappointing, really.

Meanwhile, Emery has a snooze.

Emery, ambassador for babies everywhere, convinces Jen that the morning sickness will be worth it. True story: Uncle Stuart wasn't so sure he wanted to have more kids and after a weekend cuddling and canoodling with Emery, he went back to San Antonio whistling a different tune. Emery, for her part, must have done a lot of sleeping that weekend.

Do not adjust your monitor.

Alastair may be the blond vision of his father, but he has my puritanical skin tone. It occurred to me the other day that our kids are both Mayflower descendants and Cherokee descendants. Do you think our ancestors would be pleased by the irony of that? I think John Alden may be spinning in his grave, actually.

Alastair has a thing about water getting in his eyes, which is unfortunate considering how often he leaps into the water, dives at the pool, and gets splashed while on a tube. I put sunblock on the kid almost constantly, but every time he puts his face in the water he rubs at his eyes, thus scrubbing off whatever sunblock I have managed to get under his eyes and on his nose. After this weekend, the new rule at our house is that he has to wear his goggles to be in the pool. No goggles, no pool. It isn't a perfect solution, but at least it stops him from needing to rub his eyes and wiping up all his sunblock.

2011: The Parade that WAS!

This year, the much anticipated July 4th parade actually happened. Of course, by this point in the weekend, we were all pretty worn out and Alastair was not in the best of moods.

We started at the park, preceded by a fire truck and followed by a police car, with his siren wailing. The whole way. There were a lot of highly distressed little kids with that kid of noise following us.

Note Alastair's scowl.

We made it to the pool unscathed though, although Alastair added a bit of his own wailing before it was all said and done.

The party was in full swing down at the pool with a DJ and food for everyone. Emery walked straight up to the first person she saw, a nice grandmotherly type, took the watermelon right out of her hand and walked off, munching away. She also managed to nab a frozen push up pop, which has her full attention here.

Goggles back on.

Getting ready to jump.

Emery has turned into quite the waterbug this year. We decided to keep up with swimming after all into July and her teacher is already talking about moving her up to the next class. Apparently, she is too young to go to the big kid side of the pool, so she may be put into the "tadpole" class, for babies that are too little to stay on the step without a mother there to make them, but too advanced to be in the Mommy and Me class. Our little girl: a swimming prodigy! Perhaps not.

Bomb Pops rock.

Monday night we enjoyed the fireworks (but not the traffic) at Katy Mills. This year we've had a fireworks ban because of the drought so these were the only fireworks of the weekend. Boudreaux couldn't be happier.

I'll close with an Alastair summary: after four straight days of "partying it up," we were all pretty "poofed."