Memorial Day Celebration

First thing's first: To those who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to this nation, we thank you. Happy Memorial Day.

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We spent our Memorial Day weekend at my parents' lake house. It was an opportunity to visit that house one last time before they pack it up and move across the lake. We'll miss the house, of course, but look forward to making many more memories in their new lake house (complete with a little beach area and shallower waters-- translation: much more kid friendly).

This was Macey's second trip to the lake house, but her first time out on the boat. Since she was born at the very end of summer last year, the boat was put away for the winter shortly after her birth and was just now taken out again. There's not much that Macey doesn't love and the boat was no exception. Much like her brother, Macey was right at home out on the water-- smiling, laughing, and even crawling around the boat.

It was my dad's birthday as well, so my sister and her family, and my little brother also joined us at the lake house. I love it when Camden gets to play with all of his cousins. He typically gets a lot of Will time every week, but since Jacob and Alex are in school, he sees them much more sporadically. When we got home from the lake, I asked Camden what his favorite part was, totally anticipating him to answer something like, "the boat ride" or "swinging on the green swing". Instead, he considered my question for a moment and then responded, "Playing with Jacob and Alex."

I did learn a little lesson, though: day trips are a bit much for (almost) 9 month olds. Macey slept the entire car ride to the lake; her eyes were closed before we even left our neighborhood. She took a good afternoon nap at the lake house, and after dinner time, we got back on the road to head home. My normally excellent car rider was not having it; two long car rides in one day? She wasn't interested in that at all. She started screaming about 10 minutes into our drive home, which resulted in me having to climb into the back seat and sit completely smashed between two large car seats for the rest of the way home. Oh, the things we do for our kids. Next time, we'll spend the night.