Our Start To Summer

We rang in the start of summer by heading to Lake Ouachita. It's one of my "happy places", it's beautiful and mostly relaxing (aside from the few tantrums and crying fits). It's a place I've been going each summer for most of my life and there's lots of fun memories there.




Gigi loved on Emerson.


And Aunt Whitney loved on my sweet girl with the Buddha belly. (Is she not adorable?) Oh, I can hardly stand it!



Though the weather kept us guessing, and we actually had to take it to the dock at one point and wait out the rain, we ended up still being able to stay. It was a bit cool and the weather was quite overcast at times but we had a pretty good time.

Here is Emerson singing Matt Redman's Holy, which Emerson calls "the holy song". This is his all time favorite song and he belts it out at the TOP of his lungs. It's pretty cute.



And here he's really letting loose!


The boys were excited to try out the trainer ski's. Peyton did awesome, Lawson gave it a good try, but honestly, the water was so cold that he didn't want to stay in it too long, and I really didn't want to stay in there too long either so we didn't push him to keep trying. These new training skis allow you to start them off closer to the boat without having to use a boom pole. Peyton did great!!



There were definitely those hairy moments when Ava Jane fell down AGAIN and knocked her head in the same place as last week and made it bleed, then just a few minutes later she fell down again and busted her nose and lip. With all the rough waters she had trouble keeping her balance and the poor thing just kept taking a beating. After a good bout of screaming and fussing, she finally got comfortable and nodded off to dreamland. So ya know what we did? We just drove and drove. There was no way we were gonna turn that boat off and risk waking that baby up. So we got a good look at everything from Mountain Harbor to Ouachita Shores and everything in between.


It was a fun first trip to the lake!



The boys had such a good time.


They had been counting down the days until the pool opened so on Sunday night we let summer time commence!




This little boy is precious. He's happy go-lucky, kind and polite, when I see his sweet smile it just warms my heart! I am truly blessed!


And this baby girl is a dream come true! I love being her Mom!!


I'd be remiss to not mention my love for the military as I recap our Memorial Day weekend. I love that one of the churches in town puts up all these American flags, I honestly get choked up when I drive by them and remember our own time in the Army, thinking about all that others have done for me and those we still know who fight regularly for freedom. I'm so thankful and truly grateful for their sacrifices and this wonderful country I call home!! Here's 2013, 2012 Memorial Days.