Isaac and I joined Heather for a morning walk. It wasn't a very nice sunrise, but the clouds were pretty and it was still a lovely walk. We saw a very dead sea turtle that had washed up on the beach. It was huge! There were also a lot of beach volunteers standing vigil around it, so we didn't feel as though it was appropriate to snap a picture.
Most of us went on the inflatables in the morning. One family went to Charleston for the day, Ben and Isaac were pulled on boards off to the side, and Dusty was our wonderful photographer/videographer.
It's hard to tell, but I'm at the top of the bump with sunglasses on.
Joshua ran around the ring (bright green). I got around the ring once, but it was tricky.
Overall, the place was a bunch of fun. The obstacle course was large. Joshua jumped off the top of the tall slide three or four times during the second hour. (I elected to slide down the slide.)
Ben and Isaac were in the same lake, but on the cable course. Isaac worked on knee boarding, while Ben did a both knee boarding and a little wake boarding.
The first hour didn't go all that well for Isaac and we almost checked to see if he could take over my spot on the obstacle course. However, he decided to try one more run and got far enough to keep going. He never got all the way around, as the last turn was pretty rough and he hasn't really done many water sports before. I think he had a lot more fun during the second hour though, because at least he got most of the way around. Ben had a ton of fun.
Ben:
Isaac:
We went out on the pier right after lunch. We had to pay for the privilege, which was a bit annoying, but it also probably kept it less busy. We got to pet some sharks. They were smooth one direction and like sandpaper the other way.
On the way home we got some ice cream and Isaac's started to melt...quickly. You can see all the drips coming out the bottom; Isaac, of course, found this hilarious.
As we were hanging out in the afternoon Marshall started asking Ben if he was worried about brain-eating aemebas (because we had been in a fresh water lake for the inflatables). Ben said no, and Eva jumped in with "he'd have to have a brain for that to be a problem."
It was obvious that the kids were older this year. They ate more (left overs were almost non-existent), they stayed up later, they were able to get their own food, they put dishes in the dishwasher, and they entertained themselves so well. It was amazing.
In the evening we went back to the beach.
The pier passes were good all day, so we walked to the end again at night. Looking over the water, it was so, so dark.
We helped at Kids' Food Basket today. We didn't have many lunches to pack but there were also three of us working together, so we got through them really quickly. Joshua was so fast at opening the bags and putting in the pudding.
So then they put us on "take apart puddings". We had to take them out of the shipping box, out of the resale box, crack them apart, and sort them vanilla/chocolate. We were crazy fast.
So they had us take open nutrigrain bars boxes. This was even easier than puddings, so we breezed through it.
In the end, we got to leave 30 minutes early and we felt like we did a lot of help.
It was Joshua's birthday today! He received several presents that kept him busy most of the day.
This was a sneaky gift we got in Japan, but Joshua knew we had gotten something. He just thought it was from the Nintendo store - and he asked about it about every other week. Anyway, it was a mystery Minecraft figurine and we think he ended up with the coolest one - it glows in the dark.
We made it over to Great-grandma's tonight. We brought the linking blocks, as normal. It's always fun to see what the kids create.
We stayed for dinner, but it was slow! They only had one person in the kitchen, so they were bringing out our meals one at a time. Then our waitress started washing dishes and forgot to bring Joshua's food. It wasn't that long, but when everyone else is eating and you've been waiting a while it felt like a long time. Joshua was patient though and ate quickly once he got his food...Ben and I had already finished by that time.
The day started out with donuts! As always, Doug volunteered to go get them from a local place and they were delicious. I ordered two...and ate them both. (The carrots to balanced it out, right?) There was a chocolate explosion and lemon blueberry. The chocolate one was a bit better, but both were good.
We spent the morning at the beach.
In the afternoon the guys went out for lunch and then did go-karts.
I wanted to be social, but feel alseep reading my book. And then I was too cold (the house was cold!) so I cocooned myself in pillows.
The guys came back and we realized they had a uniform. They hadn't realized it until that point though.
The adult girls went out for dinner and then guided painting. The guys put the switch on the TV for the kids.
Look at that concentration!
They also took a picture to prove the kids were fed dinner.
Meanwhile, the girls had dinner. It started raining just as we were leaving, and I was the only one that didn't bring rain anything. Katy kindly shared her coat.
Guided painting! It was my first time doing it and I thought things were going poorly. But then, things magically looked ok! My waves aren't amazing. The example also had a weird sun...it had clouds in front and behind it and it looked more like a sun waterfall than a sun setting. (Closest to what Laura did.) So I opened up the gap a bit and made a smaller sun. It's hard to see, but it looks a bit more like a sun.
At home we were lazing around, as normal, and the subject of taking pictures in white linen came up. Oh...probably because there was a group getting their pictures done for hours that day. Anyway, Ryan put one of the Parr family pictures into an AI engine and asked it to change the setting and clothes. From the fingernail image, it looked close. But then when you actually looked at the picture, it looked so wrong. So close, and so far all at the same time.
Then he did the whole group based on the picture from the day before. It is also disturbing, but not quite as similar to actual life in the small size. HOWEVER, we lost a whole person! Joshua and Marshall were changed into a single person.
