Our summer fun continues as our next group arrived: this time it was our kids, with their kids, and Mom and Dad (the great-grandparents). Quite a crowd! Little William is now eight months old, and he’s still as calm and smiley as always. He loves all the attention he gets.
One fun activity was Presentations, which we first did last Christmas. We agreed to do another round, thus officially establishing it as a family tradition. As before, there were a lot of inside jokes and open mockery of one another, but this time AI played a larger role, including amazing photos of (for example) Zack fighting a chimp.
It’s been a few years since Ollie last saw his great-grandparents, but he quickly warmed up to them. And William continued to love the attention.
The weather was perfect, and we had some outdoor dinners and spent hours talking and laughing.
At night, when everyone had worn down for the day, Zack, Alex, and I found ourselves still awake and looking for something to do. Since both houses were full of sleeping people, we ended up playing board games in the basement hallway…
One of the highlights was a boat rental for the lake. The week before, the weather had been cold and rainy with Tara’s group, but this time it was warm and sunny. Zack started off with some wakeboarding, and looked like a natural.
Ollie had been tubing behind our jet skis in past summers, but this was a very different experience: he was able to ride with Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Zack! He loved it.
Kaitlyn and Kyra took a turn…
… as did Alex and Zack:
It was also fun to just sit on the boat enjoying the summer sun.
Of course there were delicious meals (everyone took a turn planning and preparing), and plenty of games. The kids really liked playing Sheephead with their grandparents. I even dealt a hand with the best blind I’ve ever seen:
One of Ollie’s gifts from his “greats” was a little propeller-powered rocket that shot almost 200 feet high.
He launched it over and over, delighting in how high it went before popping out a parachute and floating back to the ground. Or, in one case, high into a nearby tree where Grandma had to climb up to retrieve it.
It was really special to see Mom and Dad with their great-grandkids, who just loved them.
Yep, it was a really great time to be together as a family. What an awesome group.
