labor day weekend at the lake

as you have noticed long weekend equals trip to the lake for our family, and labor day weekend was no different. we had the chance to spend time with both my family and mark's family. i will say once again what a blessing it is that both our families have lakehouses and they are so close. it is so great because it allows us to spend quality time with both. we did the normal lake things- playing on jet skis, swimming, boating, eating, relaxing, etc. i think my favorite part of the weekend was sarah (my sister in law) and i inviting our bible study friends to the lake for the day on saturday. we (the moms) get together on a regular basis, but we don't often get to be together with our entire families. on saturday their were lots of kids, 15 to be exact. they ranged in age from 5 and the youngest 3 months (jack). there were also dads, moms, 2 water slides, plenty of life jackets, sunscreen, hot dogs, hamburgers, and tons of yummy food. we had so much fun being together. in true olivia fashion, she did not really warm up to the idea of having so many kids around for a couple of hours, but eventually she came around and had fun.

don't let this picture fool you. olivia is wet, but not with lake water, just a small wading pool.

here she is "swimming."

jack playing with his daddy while relaxing on the hammock.

it was a really fun weekend. we missed those who couldn't make it. i hope we can all get together again soon!

more fun at the lake

i feel so behind in my "blogging" these days. not that life is really any different, but finding time to blog has been scarce.
anyway, i wanted to make sure and mention our fun weekend at the lake with some friends. a couple weekends ago, we loaded up the car and once again headed to cedar creek lake to the bowlin lake house. this time some of our friends from college met us there, the herridges (brad, mary, and baby grant) and the brischkes (steve and kristy). we all went to baylor together. mark and steve lived next door to each other in the dorm their freshman year, then were roommates sophomore year, and have remained close friends ever since. brad lived a few doors down from mark in the dorm their freshman year, and they too have been great friends since. the "wives" (as we are often called when the "boys" are together) we also friends in college. we were all in the same sorority together, and since we all did the "baylor thing" (met our husbands early in our college days, dated for a long time, and then got married shortly after graduation) we have all been friends for a very long time. ANYWAY, we started planning this weekend back in the spring. brad is a pastor of a church in waco, tx. steve is a lawyer in temple, tx. kristy is the director of student life for mary hardin baylor university. mark has a crazy schedule with camps and work in the summer. and mary and i are full time mommies. so with all these crazy jobs and schedules that demand different "busy seasons," august 7-9 was the first weekend we could all get away. (enough background already, i know. but i want everyone to understand how special this weekend was.) we all arrived on thursday evening. first the herridges and then later the brischkes. once the kids were in bed we spent time sitting outside, enjoying the lake, and catching up on life. these are the kinds of friends that you can just pick up where we left off- i love that about them. the next morning we woke up and hit the lake. everyone (except olivia) was anxious to get on a jet ski. so we played on the lake-- swimming, tubing, knee boarding, and steve and kristy took a really long (almost 1.5 hour) "sight-seeing trip" (they got a little bit lost) around the lake. the evening was filled with more talking and the open ceremony of the olympic games. (side note... i loved the open ceremony and the olympics. yeah for the usa!!) the entering of the countries is way less boring when you turn it into a guessing game of "how many athletes do you think they have?" "over or under ____?" thanks brad and steve for that. saturday was more of the same- playing on the lake, "crazy lake adventures," good conversation, and the olympics in between. as everyone left early sunday morning we were all talking about when and how we could fit another lake weekend on the calendar soon. here are some pictures from the weekend...

the herridges on the jet ski. oh how we wish our sweet olivia would like for us to go on family jet ski rides, but nooooo!

olivia and grant playing "ring around the rosy" for the 109th time. they had so much fun together.

this was olivia while the rest of us were playing in the lake. she was relaxing and eating an entire pint of blueberries!!

so we FINALLY convinced olivia to put her feet in. thanks grant for making it look like so much fun! still not the jet ski or swimming, but we are making progress.

this weekend was great for so many reasons- laughter, relaxation, good food, olympics, funny college stories, but the best part was friendship. friendship that is real. these are the kind of friends i know will last a lifetime. here's to many more lake weekends filled with sweet memories and to...

the next generation of cherished friends.