HG's First Water Ski!

One of John's oldest friends, Lindsey, is a champion water skier. As much as HG loves the water and has an adventurous spirit, we wanted to get her on a lake this summer and let her give water skiing a try, so naturally, we invited ourselves to Lindsey's lake house and asked if he'd give her some lessons. 

We settled on Saturday, August 1st, and wouldn't you know it- it was chilly and rainy that morning. Hadn't seen weather like that for months. We waited for a while before setting out for the lake, and finally, we just decided to give it a go and maybe it'd push off. When we got to the lake, it was still spitting a bit, but finally, John, Lindsey, and HG set off in the smaller, teaching ski boat (with a boom off the side). I felt like a piece of my heart was floating away from me as I watched them set off, but HG looked so happy and confident (even though her mama would have been a big ole scaredy cat doing that!). Cressey and I stayed at their house, played with their doll of a doggy, and waited on pins and needles for news. 

Slowly, I started getting texts from John. "She got up on the first try. Went for almost a minute." "She's loving it!" "She's killing it!" Ohmygah, I was jumping for joy! Soon, Lindsey's wife, Jaclyn, took us out on the big ski boat to meet them and I got to see HG's success and joy with my own eyes! She only fell one time, and Lindsey says it was just a set-up goof. I still can't believe it. She was so brave and tough, taking all of Lindsey's instructions, and she loved every minute of it.

Meanwhile, Cressey couldn't wait to get on a boat. She was eager to get into the water too until she got to the edge of the boat looking down at the big ole lake. HG was able to talk her into it though, and once she got comfortable, it was hard to get her out of it! While John and Lindsey were surfing or HG skiing, she'd be asking, "When can I swim?!"

Our water babies sure did have a grand time on the lake, and Cressey asked multiple times on Sunday if we could go back. I see many more lake days in our future!

One of the first few times up on the boom

Moved to the back of the small ski boat

I came up on her skiing behind the small boat

Skiing behind the big boat at the end of the day

Waving goodbye and good luck

Cress finally gets her turn on the water!

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Cress was playing with my phone and got a little artistic

Safari Park with GA

We were so lucky to have Grace Ann come stay with us for a few days at the end of July. As a means of somewhat cool (although not clean) entertainment, we set off to show her the safari park in Como.

We were about ten minutes away from the Como exit when I heard HG tell Cressey to wake up. She was nodding off, and I told her she had just enough time to catch a power nap before we got there. About five miles from the exit, we heard her cough, and before we knew it, she awoke with a start and threw up EVERYWHERE. We all about gagged just hearing/ smelling it, and HG and I piled out of the car (when I could finally stop) like it was on fire. GA was the only calm one! We were able to rinse most of the car floor, her seat, her dress, and HG was a FAB nurse for her, offering her water, applesauce, towels, etc. Cressey swore she felt fine- must have been carsickness- so we pressed onward, although with the windows rolled down!

We started with feeding the giraffes, then checked out the petting zoo, fed the lorikeets, set out on the 'safari ride,' and had to do one more visit to say goodbye to the lorikeets. The worker warned us before we entered the bird cage that they would jump on us and might nip a little and that we couldn't scream and run. I admit that I was a little nervous how Cressey would react, but she took it very seriously. They liked her long hair, and she was a trooper!

She had to ride naked the last 10 minutes or so to let her dress dry out a bit. Hysterical. Only us!

Feeding the giraffes

This camel! I was so tickled watching one of them attack GA's bag of food that I forgot I had my window open, and one of friend's came after my food bag that was sitting near the gearshift. He wouldn't take no for an answer!

I had packed a cooler with some snacks and lunchables in case the girls got hungry during our outing. Thank goodness I did because about halfway through the safari loop, Cress sat down her animal food bag, hopped back in her car seat, and started working her way through all the snacks! She rarely rolled her window down to say hi to an animal, but this one seemed keen on getting a whiff of that pizza lunchable!

Toward the end, they had a giraffe out in the pasture. I've never seen them approach a car, but we stopped and this one walked right over to us. We were completely starstruck! What an experience!