The Lake House - Part I

After weeks of debate and emails and discussion about what to do and where to go it was finally settled that we'd all head to a gorgeous house on the lake for our Seibert reunion this year! I was really worried that I'd be going up alone with the kids and that Tyler wouldn't be able to go (so much so that I really tried to convince everyone to come vacation here!) but luck was on our side and he got just enough time off for us to have an awesome vacation!

We started off with a walk around the neighborhood with the littles.

 

The house, of course, was amazing! RIGHT on the lake with a private dock. It was perfect -- except for LOADS of dog hair that covered every surface of the house. Poor Molly vacuumed and cleaned most of it before we got there but seriously, it was everywhere. There was even a special part of the couch we nicknamed "dog corner" because it smelled so much like dog. Other than that the place was seriously amazing!

Of course, no family vacation is exempt from a few hiccups. The first night we were there one of the dogs got out. In searching for her someone noticed that Kevin's boat was full of water. And sinking. What a disaster that would have been! It was pitch black and the boys bailed out what they could and hauled the boat out to get checked. By the next afternoon everything was fixed but oh wow if no one had noticed it that night it would have been at the bottom of the lake in the morning!

Our second hiccup? Tyler, me and Nick decided to take a few of the littles out on the boat. Someone (I won't name names) was supposed to put gas in the boat. Well, we ended up stranded in the middle of the lake. The lake isn't that wide so Tyler offered to swim to shore and run around to the dock and get one of the kayaks and bring a gas can back. In the mean time, a nice boat full of probably drunk-ish forty somethings came by and helped tow us in. But the damage had already been done for Tyler who ran barefoot on burning hot asphalt and blistered his feet. By the time he got there we were almost to the dock.

The cousins had so much fun together! I love when they get to spend time playing and being kids. Although all of my cousins are much older than me, I still have really great memories with them. I hope our kids always have that, too!

 

Kayaks with the kids!

The sunsets were unreal! 

We really did have a great time at the Lake House! We even had our own Grandkids Olympics complete with medals and an awards ceremony and smores! We also got some family pictures in (and thankfully everyone was on board with that!)

 

 

Papa planned some fun games for the kids, too. Of course they loved every second of it!

We even had a craft!

And the third hiccup -- poor Max falling off the tube while he was riding with Jordan! I felt so bad for him! He of course was wearing a life vest and popped right up but he was under the water for long enough that I screamed at Tyler to jump in and get him. He had been leaning over the front of the tube for some reason and the whole tube went under the water while they were both holding on. Papa stopped the boat right away but I think Max took a bit to let go of the tube before he came up. Poor thing was scared TO DEATH. Screaming panic coming up out of the water! I was so sad for him! It happened a second time, after a lot of convincing we got him to go with Jessica but he was so freaked out that he did the same thing and went under. Poor kid. It was painfully clear that we needed to get him some swim lessons!! He mostly spent the rest of the trip not in the water and driving the boat with Papa.

For the most part there was a lot of this going on. Including the air chair. Don't know what the air chair is?? Look up a video on youtube. It's totally worth it. And it's ridiculously funny watching someone on it! Seriously, it's like watching the carousel race on Mary Poppins. I loved watching everyone!