For the Grandmas, Sue and Sue,... and all the other family too!: 3rd full day of vacation: we have arrived.

Today was a REALLY good day. :) Jonas and I sat out on the porch the majority of the day, eating, reading, or listening to podcasts. The kids spent the majority of the day playing nicely together in the water. Amazing. Our general joy was interspersed with things like sailing for Jonas, reading and violin for Layla, and a bike ride for both older kids. I got to READ many chapters of a book (reading is really what makes me feel like I'm on vacation...otherwise it's just me doing all my regular life stuff like cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc much closer to the water. Meh. I want to READ), so that was awesome.

Photos from my phone:

Playing Jenga as a family last night. I won. No big deal.

Jonas taught the older 2 chess tonight, but I have no photo proof because I was showering at the time.

The little white dot out in the lake is Jonas on his boat...the younger two are making sure they keep an eye on him.

Cora "helping" to sail.

Finn and I took advantage of the free time on vacation to do some drawing. I signed up for the 48 hour free trial of Artventure, and after doing only one drawing so far I'm completely sold on it. To someone else who has creative flair and artistic talent it would likely be too constraining, but for me? And my kids who are nervous about "doing it wrong" with drawing? It was PERFECT. I loved it, and so did Finn, so I think we'll be signing up for it for the school year...it's a very reasonable price I think, especially thinking that the Australian dollar (the host of the site who makes all the instructional videos is from Australia) is weak against the US dollar right now...haha (yes I for SURE did check that...hahaha). One thing I loved about the Artventure site is that she has tons of videos, but they are all leveled 1-5, and you can sort them by level...so easy. SOLD.Step-by-step instructions to success make us all feel good over here! ;)

Finishing up our fire trucks. I always do it with the kids too, since I wish I were better at art in general but lack all the talent... Layla was too into playing Legos to join us this time.

My fire truck

Finn's fire truck

Heading out for a swim into the middle of the lake.

Cora decided to stay back with me. She was VERY afraid that a boat might hit them out in the middle of the lake. After she started talking about it I got kind of nervous too...good POINT, Cora!!

Watching them return...

You can see Jonas is standing way out there. It's NOT a deep lake, even though it is pretty large. I think it's only 15 feet deep at the deepest part (things you learn reading the VRBO provided materials).

These kids swam ALL. DAY. LONG.
They loved it.
We loved it.

Layla really wanted to learn to dive like Papa.

Despite many attempts, she is not quite there yet.
She needs to work on a strong, confident spring in her legs. :)

Papa got ice cream bars at the store today...big treat.

Just relaxing after dinner on the deck. Where we sat...all day. SO fun. :) Resting is kind of hard for Jonas and myself, sometimes. We have had to learn how to vacate, for sure... Not "travel/see stuff all the time"...rest.

Naked all day long. We've given up. There is no hope for a clothed Cora around water. She is in HEAVEN when she is naked.

Photos from my real camera

Cora was pretty sure this was a snail.
I am pretty sure it's a seed from some tree nearby.
Cora won.

These two. All day.

Finn is wearing his shorts at a very "Abercrombie" hip height these days....

I have to say, I didn't exactly feel like I had my A-game today with the camera. Probably it was because I wanted to only sit in one place and take photos from that spot, no matter where the sun or the good shot would be...haha. Sigh. Vacation camera problems...

This next sequence happened ALL.DAY.LONG. Cora and Finn lose things in the water every 3 seconds...

Oooooh, look, fun with this toy!

Whoa! Wait! How on EARTH did it end up in the water out of my reach???

Amazing, responsible big sister to the rescue

Finn yelling instructions from the safety of the dock.

Layla doing JUST fine on her own.

Cora running to GRAB the item out of Layla's hand, despite it being her fault it was in the water to begin with...

AND...repeat X378 today...

I can't tell you how many times I watched Layla jump into the water today. :) The girl is a FISH.

Having that view right out your back door never gets old.

MY spot. Best spot in the house.

Corn on the cob was a big hit a dinner.

Look, it's me trying to get Cora to eat more so she won't wake up STARVING at 5:45 like this morning...

Cora was not peeing in the bucket on the porch. :) She was trying to wash each part of her body of sand in the little bucket. But she WOULD pee in that bucket for sure, in a heartbeat. It was just not happening in *this* particular photo.