This was fun because it shows how enthusiastically Luke was splashing! I think he liked it!
This picture shows how Luke would bend over and splash and play in the water while standing. :)
And I actually like her camera's version of our family picture much better than the one from our camera because Luke is actually cracking a little smile here! He's pretty stony-faced in the other one. :) And this picture has a nice blue in the sky - it's washed out in the other one.
We arrived late at night (we left right at Luke's bedtime, so he'd start sleeping in the car) and put him directly to bed when we got there. The next morning, we just hung out at the house for a bit in the morning with Nathan's parents and did a little shopping after Luke's morning nap while we waited for Matt & Tara to arrive in the afternoon. Here's a cute picture of Luke cruising around the coffee table. :)
That evening, all of us went to a little beach close-by and did some wading and playing on the playground they had there. No baby swings, so Luke had to swing with Daddy!
Thursday, we packed up and headed to Lake Gregory, where they had a nice swimming beach for kids. Unfortunately, Luke is the only one who still takes a morning nap, so we took along his playpen also, covered it with towels, and let him take his nap on the beach! I sat next to him and cross-stitched. He got a good hour in! Here's the Hughes family from my vantage point by Luke (using probably all of my zoom!).
Luke got into the swimming also once he woke up! I even walked him out a few times till he was waist deep (which he loved!) to rinse the sand off after he'd been sitting down, but unfortunately I wasn't able to get a picture of that. It was hard enough to ask Phyllis to take the few that I did get - all us adults had our hands full watching the kids and taking turns going out in the rented rowboat (Emma and Felicity got turns also). That's the drawback to being both the picture taker and the caretaker - you can't do both at the same time sometimes. :)
Playing in the shallow water with Sophia. This was great fun also - as long as he didn't stick it in his mouth!
Dry sand works, too!
Luke LOVED the spaghetti noodles I let him eat during our dinner that night! He couldn't get enough of them - and he'd already had a full toddler dinner before we started cooking!
Playing with Daddy before we got going on Friday morning.
We drove to the little zoo by Big Bear Lake on Friday, and enjoyed looking at all the animals. Here are a couple of the best pictures I got, along with a nice one of Emma, Felicity & Sophia where they were looking at a mountain lion (you can see all of their faces in the same picture - amazing!).
Since Luke had been cooped up in a carseat or stroller or held for several hours, we decided to let him stretch his legs a bit before getting in the car to drive back to the cabin. There wasn't any grass nearby where we'd parked, so we found this remarkably clean picnic table and let him "walk" around on it. And try on Daddy's sunglasses!
I finished this cross-stitch of The Lord's Prayer on Friday night during the Olympics opening ceremonies. :) I completed it from start-to-finish in 10 days! I'm selling it on Etsy - go check it out!
Saturday, we were joined by the Duncan family and made another trip to the close beach at Lake Arrowhead. Luke was close to his nap, so I didn't bother getting him dressed for swimming since we weren't staying long, but I wish I had! He had gotten so used to the water at Lake Gregory, that he really wanted to walk out farther than I could let him. :( I ended up taking his shorts off so that he could get in a tad bit deeper without getting them wet, but still couldn't go too far since he wasn't wearing a swim diaper. He liked playing in the sand for awhile though - isn't that picture cute!?!
That night, I gave him a bath and just HAD to take some pictures of my little boy all fresh and clean!
Sunday, BJ turned 3 months, so they were getting him to laugh and smile for some milestone pictures - I captured some too!
We also celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary!!! Kind of a wierd day, since we didn't do many "anniversary" type things, but still nice to share it with Nathan! Here is a nice family picture of all of us.
Luke REALLY enjoyed the leftover blueberry muffins that I had made for Sunday School snacks. :)
It really is quite fun to watch Luke and Vijay interacting! All the "experts" say that babies this age don't acknowledge other babies, but Joanna and I beg to differ! I finally managed to capture their interactions on video, too, so be watching for that on my video blog.
Just a nice picture of Joanna with her adorable son!
We played outside a bit after family dinner that week, and got some nice pictures of the kids. I really like Luke's face in the first one with Lauren. Then we have a picture of him with all his Duncan cousins (guess who wasn't too happy with this one), and a picture of Grandpa with all the grandsons. :)
On Friday of that week, Joanna and I welcomed the chance to visit with our friend, Sarah and her daughter, Anna, who were visiting SoCal! We had fun eating lunch, visiting, and taking pictures. The time was over too fast, but I couldn't postpone leaving because Luke was letting me know with a very disgruntled attitude that he was more than ready for his nap. :P
On Saturday (yes, there were A LOT of activities the week before our vacation that I didn't get to share with you!), we met up with ALL the Hughes families at the Fair! Nathan's oldest sister, Jennifer, was visiting with her husband and daughter, so we had everyone together for a bit. Luke really enjoyed the animals, petting zoo and the model train!
Oh, and Luke is 13 months old now!
Sunday, we celebrated Nathan's mom's birthday with another get-together, including lunch, cake, swimming, etc. I was commissioned to make the cake, and I clipped a rose off of a bush outside our building to decorate it! :)
Phyllis was coercing smiles out of BJ and I managed to capture one!
Luke is doing A LOT more crawling forward onto his tummy than he has in recent months. He had virtually stopped doing that - content to sit and play or whine to be placed into a stand. :P Now, almost every time he's sitting and playing, he'll eventually get onto his tummy then roll around. I let him hang out that way as long as he wants to - I figure it'll help build up those muscles that he never bothered developing before. :P Who knows, maybe he'll crawl before walking after all!
Saturday, we went to Nathan's brother's house for a BBQ for our friend, Brian's birthday. While we were there, we all walked down to a park by their house so Matt could fly a kite that they have. It was so fun watching my nieces holding the kite handle and picking flowers - so little in that huge field! I'm standing quite far away and used all of my zoom to get some of these pictures. :)
Then we went to the little playground near their house and enjoyed the equipment for a little bit. Luke went on the slide all by himself (with Daddy at the top and Mommy catching him). It's a taller slide than the one at Grandma's house, so it was kind of fun seeing him slide down all alone. :) I got a video of it, so you'll have to watch for that.
