July 15-18, 2010
Yankee Springs - Gun Lake

As I look at the pictures from this year's Gun Lake trip - I am reminded of our trip their last year. Last year, it rained and was freezing cold. One evening we had even discussed going out to eat just to warm up our bones. We also did some fishing and hiking because that was the type of weekend that it was. We never even put our swimsuits on that weekend, as most of the time we were wearing sweatshirts and coats.

This year was so different. It was hot and steamy. We headed to down to the lake to go swimming 2 or sometimes 3 times a day. We never hiked and didn't even get our fishing poles out of the trailer. We enjoyed time with Uncle Shawn's boat and just plain had a lot of fun together. I did get some pictures, but due to the fact that I was usually in the water with the kids they are actually quite limited as to how many times I actually got the camera out.

The kids are all learning how to swim so well. It is wonderful to not have to mess with life jackets everytime we go into the water, but on the other hand the kids lack of floatation devices changes the way you watch the kids in the water, and I found myself constantly counting heads.
The kids had a lot of fun with Aunt Catherine in the water - she showed Gabrielle how to do summersaults in the water, and I think Uncle Cory even tried a handstand or two.

There was also beach play time. We had lots of trucks, shovels, and sand castles.

Matthew kept wanting to get his hands into the boys' sand castles.
Fortunately, for him - his mom started to build some castles strictly for the purpose of Matthew's destruction. What a happy boy!

Saturday we had the opportunity to have visitors. Aunt Nancy came, and Aunt Barb brought 4 of her grandkids along. (Lexi, Tori, Eli and Matea). The girls loved getting re-acquainted with the twins, Lexi and Tori and they had a wonderful time in the water together.

Nicholas has been getting more and more excited about the water this year. He is getting more comfortable in the water and actually has a desire to improve his swimming skills.
For the first time ever, he actually let Papa throw him in the water with no tubes or life jackets.

Ready, set, go

All day long on Saturday, Owen kept saying it was
"jumping off the boat day". He made sure to remind his dad of this fact
when they got the boat out that evening and he was so excited to jump off the boat.
The first time he jumped to his dad, the second time he just jumped right in.

The other kids all got the opportunity to jump off the boat too, but I had already put my camera away. However, a memory of have of that was - as the kids jumped off the boat: Matea kept saying "Me, Me" to her Grandma. She, of course, didn't want to actually jump off the boat as she was already cold and wrapped up in a towel - but she sure thought it looked like the kids were having fun.

In addition, to getting to jump off the boat - all the kids that wanted to were given the opportunity to go tubing. I didn't get pictures of them all, because I only had my camera out for a few minutes before joining everyone in the water.