Vacation Week: Wednesday, Birthday Party Day for Levi

This is a picture inside our room at the gazebo. It had a spiral staircase, going upstairs to a loft that had a closet and a queen size bed. Seth claimed the loft as his room, and that is where he slept.


Look at this happy birthday boy! He had a Batman birthday cake, and he was super excited!


Boy it sure is hard to watch your brother have a birthday....


Blowing out our "redneck" candle. I forgot to buy candles, so Stephen and his dad rolled up some cardboard, and napkins, and made a candle! hahaa


Is that Batman or the birthday boy?! :)


This was one of the presents Levi got for his birthday. Of course we had to try it out to! haha Seth found this spiderman kickboard out in the reeds! haha

I love these pictures...Stephen getting out of the little boat, onto the big boat...

Stephen losing his footing on the big boat, and plunging into the water....

coming up laughing! haha

Feeding the geese...


Me, watching the boys feed the geese...

Seth, shocked that he dropped his large piece of bread, and the geese gobbled it up! LOL!

Stephen laughing at the boys!

Levi, finally trying out his new row-boat.

Dressed up in his pajamas, is that Seth or Batman?! To Cute!

Vacation Week: Thursday and Friday...

I'm just now catching up on updating the blog. been visiting my parents, for my birthday. So, I'll update some as I can, and eventually get caught up, hopefully. :)

This was last Thursday and Friday, while we were on vacation. Thursday morning we had Stephen's grandfather's funeral. We came straight back to the lake afterwards, and the boys were ready to have some fun. (They were great during the funeral, nice and quiet, polite and respectful. I was proud of them).
Anyway, after we got back they fed the Geese with Granny. They loved this!


Can we say, like father like son??! haha





That afternoon Seth tried to ski. He would pop right up, but he had a harder time keeping his balance. But I was so proud of him, because he wasn't scared, and at least kept trying.


Here is Seth and Daddy, getting ready to ski.



Here he goes! As I said, he pops right up, but would then fall over after a few seconds. He'll get it eventually though. :)

Daddy and Levi in the Tube. Levi was having a blast, being crazy with his Daddy.

While Dad and Levi were in the Tube, Seth was getting bored! ha!

Being CA-RAAA-ZY! LOL!

Giving each other Hi-Five!

Here is a picture of our home for that week. We were in the center Gazebo. There were 3 other villa's, on the sides of the Gazebo. It all floats on the water, and is so nice and relaxing!

That evening we took the boys on a hike, to try and wear them out some. They had so much fun! We even got rained on. It was a nice and steady, slow rain, and was very enjoyable.

Vacation Week: Saturday...

Levi=crazy!

While we were fishing, this Dragonfly landed on the end of Seth's fishing pole and just stayed there forever. So I took his picture. Hmmm, is this a clue that maybe we weren't catching enough fish?! hahaa :)

The water at this lake is SO CLEAR! Can you see all of the Minnow's swimming in the water? We would throw them bits of bread and they would attack it like little pirana's! haha It was so cool to be able to see so deep down into the water.

Seth, patiently waiting for another fish to bite his hook.

Gave up on fishing, and went swimming with the fish instead! haha :) This is his "Aunt Michelle" impression...but usually we could say, show us how Aunt Michelle floats, and he would do this, but then stick out his tongue also! ha-ha. He had us cracking up!

Daddy and Seth: Row, Row, Row your boat, gently around the lake..... LOL!

Our Final Day of Vacation...

On our last day there, Levi wanted to go tour the Tower, like we did when we went there a few years back.
Here it is, from the boat...


The boys outside of the tower, before we went in.


On the hike up to the tower. They had to take a little rest! haha

Seth on the circular stairs, on the way to the very top of the tower.

Looking down from the top of the tower, at Papaw and Aunt Michelle.

Seth, at the top of the tower. He saw this little hole, and said it was a mouse hole. I said "Jerry mouse lives here?" and he said "No Mom, he lives with Tom the Cat"! ha-ha Mom's can be so clueless! LOL!

Daddy and Levi at the top of the tower.


Stephen took a photo of me walking around the top of the tower also.

Boys, going down the circular stairs.

Boys, sitting in front of the HUGE fireplace, being silly.

I love this picture of Seth. He looks so cute and innocent...if only he would always look like this! ha!

On our way back down to the boat, we saw this cat laying on the bench that the boys had sat on earlier. He was a very friendly cat, and Seth really enjoyed petting him. I think he wanted to load him up and bring him home with us! :)


Sitting on our dock, enjoying the last few peaceful moments of our vacation.

Levi begged his daddy to get him a cat-tail, out of the reeds that were lining the walkway. So Stephen did. Here is Seth, playing with it.

Levi was using the cat-tail as a sword!

Before we left, we got some group photo's. I couldn't see if everyone had their eyes open in this first one, so I told them to let me do one more to make sure. Talk about laughing myself silly once we got home and saw these pictures! In this first one, Granny had her eyes closed, but everyone else had their's open. So after had I told them to let me get one more picture, so that I could make sure everyone's eyes were open, Levi shut his tight for the second photo, and Granny opened hers wide! hahahaaaaa We were all cracking up laughing!

A final group photo, of all of us together. Stephen, Me, Aunt Michelle, Granny, Papaw and of course Seth and Levi in the front. We had a wonderful, relaxing weekend together!

Levi, now LOVES to water ski!

This is a video of Levi water skiing. His Daddy is with him, and I am the one holding Levi's Trainer Ski's Rope. He had never tried to ski before this past week of vacation, but he learned very quickly. He is now hooked! He absolutely loved it, and begged to go over and over, every single day.

These are pictures of his very first "attempt" at the water ski's. He came right up rather quickly. He had Daddy out there with him, to help hold him up straight and keep his ski's straight and separated, until it was time.

He popped right up, and then worked on keeping his balance. He did GREAT! I'm so proud of him for being brave and giving this a try. He wont even be 6 years old, until Thursday. I didn't learn how to water ski until I was 23!

Daddy fell, and Levi was still going. I love this shot of Levi looking back at Daddy like "hey, where'd you go, and what are you doin'?" :)

He just kept on, all by himself. If you look closely, you can see Daddy's empty ski rope! haha :) What a week!

A Big THANK YOU to Aunt Michelle for taking the Pictures and Video of this for us!

Sorry for not updating you...

Sorry it's been so long since I last updated. We've had a whirlwind of a week. Last Saturday (over a week ago), we got a call that Stephen's grandfather wasn't expected to make it another 24 hours. So we rushed up there (about a 4 1/2 hour trip), to see him on last time. He was cohearant and we were able to talk to him some, and he even laughed at something the boys did when we were leaving. :) Then we stayed the night with Stephen's family and came home the next day. On our way home, we got the call that Papa had went on to heaven. He apparently held out, until he saw and visited with his youngest son, who had come in from Tennessee; he had then seen all of his kids one last time. It is amazing that people can hold on like that, to say all of their final goodbyes.
We had reservations to go on vacation at a floating Gazebo, at a lake about an hour from there, for Monday-Sunday. So during that week, we made a trip back over for the funeral. On the way there, Seth was saying his tummy hurt, and he ended up throwing up in the van. I was catching it all in napkins, as his Aunt Michelle was about to throw up from witnessing this! LOL! I can handle puke, from my kids, just not blood. So I cleaned him up, and while doing this, a Highway Patrol pulled up behind us to see what was going on, and told us to move as soon as we could because that was a dangerous area to be pulled over (because it is a busy highway). Ha! he must not have kids! if one is puking, you're pulling over and don't care where you are. So anyway, I had some wet-wipes and got him and his clothes cleaned up. He felt much better after all of this, so we stopped and got him so sprite to wash out his mouth. Then we finally made it to the funeral.
I was doing ok through the funeral, until I saw Stephen's mom crying. It broke my heart. I tried to hold it together though.
Stephen's grandfather was a Veteran. He served in the Army, and was in the Korean and Vietnam war. So they had a military burial for him. When they fired the guns and started playing taps, it broke my heart all over again. But we know that Stephen's grandfather is in a better place now, and is pain free, so that makes things a little easier.
We did have a good vacation, in the midst of everything that was going on. It was nice to just get away and relax. Levi learned how to water ski, and we had his 6th birthday party (his birthday is actually this week and we will have another party with my parents on his birthday). So we all had a wonderful trip! :) I'll post pictures, and more about our week, soon.

Batman or Superman?

Is it Batman or Superman? I see the Batman mask and cape, but I see the Superman under-roos and a Superman Book. Hmmm????? Adorable, whoever he is! :)