The Friend Family: These Summer Days

There are certain activities that to me help create an idyllic summer. And it seems this weekend we've managed to do many of them. God answered my morning plea for help yesterday by sending Nicole our way for a day of shopping, companionship and sanity. Somehow even with a screaming toddler having her around helped my mental state immensely yesterday. After all the children finally settled down for their afternoon naps we enjoyed a quiet hour or two lounging on the couch and when I heard the door open at 3:30 I jumped in surprise but was delighted to see Paul walking in the door, home early from work. Yay! That's possibly one of my favorite surprises. A slight misunderstanding resulted in a spontaneous family trip to the pool. I love it when Paul get's a chance to do things like this with us and I think he enjoys seeing the kids doing things he often misses out on. Jack was thrilled and we got to spend some time in the big pool and some time in the toddler area. Perhaps the highlight of the pool though was Jack's slow slow decent down the big yellow slide. He was asking and asking to go down the slide but he was clearly too short so we kept telling him he couldn't go, he needed to be taller. To put the matter to rest once and for all I told him we could go up the stairs and ask the lifeguard on duty. He promised that he would not cry ~~when~~ if he was told no. When we got to the top I made him go up to the lifeguard and ask if he could please go down a slide. To my surprise the lifeguard thought for a minute and said Jack could go one time. While we waited for his turn I just kept telling him that he would have to go by himself and that he would go under water. He didn't care, he was determined to go down that slide. When it was his turn he climbed in and sat down then after a slight hesitation he pushed himself forward. The first curve caused him to flip onto his belly with this face in the water. Paul said it took forever for him to wind his way down to the bottom and when they finally saw him it looked like he was drowning with his face in the water like that. I knew from watching him from above that he had held his head up almost the whole way down. Another lifeguard caught him at the bottom and when she brought him up from the water he with a bit of a smile, "That was scary." He didn't cry, he didn't cough and sputter, he didn't look scared or upset. He just said it was fun and it was scary. I have no idea if he would do it again if he got the chance.

A great night at the pool was topped off by a visit from the ice cream truck. I may or may not have run out into the yard and waved my hands wildly while jumping to flag him down before he turned out of our neighborhood. I'm cool like that. For some reason I get really excited about the ice cream truck. Our fun evening was topped off with a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Friend. Our evening couldn't have been more pleasant.

Friday night-pool and ice cream. Saturday-lake swimming and tractors. We went to my parents for the day to help them clean the shed. But it was a very hot day so after lunch we took a break and jumped in the lake for a family swim. The kids all loved it. I hope this is just the beginning of years of summer lake swimming by my family. Schaeffer did get stuck with the pink floaty, but only for a bit. Mom finally tracked down the sports themed (much more stable) floaty and we switched him out. He easily could have climbed out of that pink one. Our day today was topped off with a 3rd birthday party for our good friend Silas. Sadly, I didn't take any pictures, but we had a great time being with friends. It's always fun to get whole families together (i.e. the dads) because usually it's just us moms and the kids. So for everyone to get to hang out and witness the craziness is fun. Paul was a big hit with the kids since he let them chase him down with an army of water guns.