Lakes and Bathing Suits

The weekend was...interesting...to say the least. Friday I went into work early and then we headed to the lake again, this time with Little Man (E) in tow. I love the dude, I do--I had him with me every day for five years, I changed his diapers, I fed him in the middle of the night...I love the little dude. But, these last couple years where he's (finally) been with his mom the majority of the time has pretty much turned him into a prissy brat and I've had him since Thursday so it was rather challenging. Does it make me a bad aunt if I say my nephew is a prissy brat? I have a niece who I also think is a brat, just a super spoiled one. I love them both, and being the (sometimes stupidly) honest person I am I'm willing to admit that they are brats, even if that does make me a bad aunt. (...does it? ha!)

But, anyway, Saturday we went out on the boat and Cabbage got her first taste of the lake life in Brady's life jacket from last year pictured here with her fabulous self:


Cabbage sported it a bit differently, seeing as how Brady was in the top 80% for height and weight and Cabbage just got on the bottom of the scale at her last checkup. It basically swallowed her whole:


She was not happy about it. She also sported Brady's float from last year--she was better with that. And on the way in Little Man got to drive the boat (shh!):


Saturday night I took all 7 (potty trained) kids, aged 12, 12, 9, 8 ,7, 6, and 4 to play putt putt on the sorriest course you've ever seen in your life with just a cousin of mine who, bless her heart, has zero authoritative power with children because she's really still in the stage where she'd like to "outsmart" or argue with them rather than the "because I said so" stage. So it was me and all seven kids basically, which wasn't actually bad but I was ready to go back to the campground by the time that was over.

Sunday we hit the cliffs. The Cliffs is an area of the lake where there are, surprise!, cliffs. It isn't an advertised tourist attraction or anything, you just have to know about it. And I'm very, very surprised they haven't shut it down yet. You basically have to jump over trees. They range from 5 feet to 40 feet in height, and higher when the water level is low. We kept the boat kind of far from the cliffs to be safer with the kids around so the shots I got were pretty bad, but here's the best one, as blurry as it is:

That's the highest one. And I know what you are thinking, and yes I did jump off of it. Once. Once every two years is about my quota for that jump. My 6 year old cousin jumped off the second highest one last year (at 5). My 8 year old Little Man? Wouldn't even jump off the boat.

We got home at 1030 sunday night, I had a load of laundry to do so I went to bed around 1215 and got up at 530 this morning and then worked 730am-6pm today. I'll be sure not to volunteer for that too often from now on :)

BUT. My bestie is back in town for the summer, and we went bathing suit shopping tonight. Total failure. However, I did get a $4 ballcap for the water and I put it on when I got home and said hi to my puppy. Chase HATES this hat. The first thing he did was bite the bill and rip it off my head. I thought maybe he just didn't want it on me, but I had to pull it out of his mouth. He hates it so much he'd really like to rip it to shreds. I mean, it's just a ballcap!

It's a Xavier hat, though...I guess my dog's a U of Cincinnati fan!