Adventures for Lynne's Birthday

What do you do when it's a beautiful day, you have family visiting, and it's your birthday? Well, for Lynne that would be have everyone go to the lake. Do you think there were any complainers? Not that I know of - certainly none from my house.

So off we went for a day in the lake - on the lake - looking at the lake. Water squirters were great for water fights - of which, my older boys (Jeremy and Peter) thought they might be able to take on Uncle Adam. Uncle Adam had his own super charged squirters and was able to hold his own.

No trip to the lake is complete without some canoe jumping! Last year it was just the older girls. This year little Olivia wanted to do it too. She was a little concerned when she got in the water, but Gabi swam with her and she very quickly gained her own confidence.

Jeremy and Peter also decided to try it out. I totally missed a picture of Jeremy, and after the first time he decided it wasn't his thing -so he went to the tiny little sandy strip and started digging instead. Peter panicked - totally freaked out about being in water that he couldn't stand up in. Gabi tried to help him, but, of course, he wasnted to grab on to her. So she was instructed to leave him alone and get out of his reach. Hey - we're not totally mean, everyone was wearing a life jacket. But it sure made from some good discussion with Gabi about the importance of not getting too close to someone who is panicking in water.

Peter and Olivia decided it was fun enough to do again - though  neither "jumped" again, but rather just went over the edge.

(And Jacob and I just had fun watching the whole event - along with Marie and Lynne and Adam) 

A favorite part of being at the lake is canoe rides - though there seemed to be few of them this year. Probably because the kids were too interested in jumping out. Never the less, Marie and Adam took Eli out. Then Bob took out his mother - a yearly tradition! And after that Jacob got to on his very first canoe ride ever! He was so excited - and we  had so much fun listening to him sing every song he could think of.

Fun song story: He started with Bob the Builder - which is always fun because of Bob, then sang some oldies and funny songs - like Barbara Ann. The best part was that he wanted me to sing I am A Child of God - which I began to receive the response "I not like it!" I didn't know what he meant since he loves that song. Then Bob started singing it in Spanish. Jacob grinned and said "Yeah, that's the one".

Later, while telling the story to Marie and Lynne, with Jeremy was digging in the dirt at our feet, Marie saiys "What? You don't know all the words after five kids?" - teasing me, of course, to which I replied something like "nope. But my older three do - or at least mostly" - Jeremy piped up with "I do." So Marie asked him to sing it. He started, stopped and then said "I don't remember all the words. Or any actually."

That was the actual birthday - but then we had to celebrate the following day too. So out came the stomp rockets and the gysers. Yes, we do them every year! But this year, there was a extra gyser for Lynne to pull!

No party is complete without cake - of course - and Lynne's favorite is German Chocolate. I made the cake - Gabi made the elephant banner to go on top. It was, of course, super delicious!

To top of the night, we had a little family music recital. Piano pieces played by Gabi, Haley, Beth, Jeremy, Annie, and Peter. Then a recorder piece by Gabi - and Beth tried to do a violin piece, but was really having a hard time since it had been awhile and that violin isn't her favorite. She's so crazy picky about sound. I supposed that will be a good thing later on.

 I do have other pictures - and several of the ones I picked out, for whatever reason, would not load up. I suspect - since blogger keeps telling me to use a different browser or to update (which I can't - we're using a really old computer.. but it works and we like it and so we'll use it till we can't) - anyway, I suspect it has to do with the browser. I'll look into more later. Right now I'm just trying to get caught up a little. Just a little.

(UPDATE: I discovered someone could see a picture that I thought hadn't posted... so I finally sucked it up and check on a different browser... so sorry for the wackiness of pictures. I think I'll try to follow bloggers suggestion and use a different browser when updating and my firefox for everything else.)

Trinidad

 Trinidad was, believe it or not, colder then Patrick's Point - which, by the way, I was informed is indeed warmer in the spring and fall then it is in the summer. Of course, we started with less visible sunlight - lots of fog - which I didn't mind, being that we don't see much of that where we live. With the wind blowing, the fog laying heavily, and the chill in the air, we started out on a little trail up the hill and back down.

We did not all stay together - that would have been difficult as we had some rather speedy kids, a group taking pictures, and a group with a pregnant lady. So, we all went at our own paces, enjoying - or racing through - the scenery.

Notice the wind in that tree above? Well, we went down to that beach - yes, that very one, wind and all. And the kids had a great time. I only got a few pictures as Jacob was ready to sleep. The "castle" that Bob built - you'll see it below with him and I seated in it, was where I sat to hold Jacob under my coat and a towel so he could stay warm enough to sleep. The kids were great at helping Bob build two moats around the initial wall to help make sure the racing waves crashing and running up the shore weren't able to attack me.

We took a break - and found a little shelter - for some lunch at a nearby park - not the playground type. Still, kids are great at being able to find something to keep them busy regardless of where they were. I'm not really sure what game the came up with, but it involved a soccer ball and a frisbee.

Then were was Bob, who took advantage of the situation to catch a few zzzz's - no one could blame him, he'd been up early each morning to take kids to the tide-pools. Of course, he opted out of the third day, since he'd also been staying up late at night AND each of our kids (except Jacob who we felt was too little) had gone once. Others (Marie and Julie) went all three mornings.

And there was more beautiful scenery to enjoy!

Then back into town we went, where we split up. Marie's family headed back down on the super windy beach, while we made our kids walk around Trinidad a little. We went out to the wharf and discovered a hidden beach, much smaller, but much more protected.

Then up to the lighthouse - it was a replica of the real light house still in use today. The bell however, is the real old fog bell - which has since been replaced. Gabi was particular interested in the wall of "Buried At Sea" which included people even to the present year.

 And what would any trip to the ocean, especially a wharf, be without boats - ships - fisher vessels?

We ran into Julie up at the lighthouse, and when we got back to the beach area Jacob was exhausted and Bethie was ready to relax. So I stayed in the van while Jacob slept and Bethie worked on Suduku.

The others head back down on the beach to find Marie's family. They were looking for shells - so away they all went. They saw some neat things along the coast.

It was a nice day!