summertime with the fam

My mom's neighbors left for vacation Saturday morning. Before they left, they invited our family to use their pool whenever we wanted. I don't think they realized how happy this made me.

About this time each year, I start getting that itch to go on a vacation. The kind that only salt air, sand, and chlorine can fix. Well, we obviously didn't get to smell any salty air. But we got pretty darn close to the rest of it.

Yep, that's sand and real palm trees you see.

This is why I haven't been blogging much in the last few days.

I mean, really. Would you bother blogging if you had free access to this?

I should probably mention that I'm a total fish when it comes to water.

If it were up to me, I'd be there 24/7 swimming.

Brad, while he enjoys it, gets bored after awhile. The problem is that he can't get water stuck in his ear (he had to have reconstructive surgery on his ear when he was a kid). So swimming under water for long periods of time is bad. Which means races, dives, etc are all out. But it's ok. We've been having a great time, and my sister is there to swim with me some too. It worked out perfectly, because Brad's work schedule changed some this week, giving him more free daylight hours to play with us.

As for Noah, he likes the pool, but he obviously can't really swim yet. He has a life vest, but he hasn't figured out how to keep himself from bobbing back and forth in it. However, the little daredevil does like to put his face in the water. I'm hoping he's taking after his mama.

The water was freezing the first day, so Noah needed a little convincing that this was supposed to be fun.

But eventually, he came around.

The best part?

My family is right across the street. Which means when Noah's sick of swimming, we have immediate babysitters ready to take him and let us have some grownup swim time.

("grownup" being used loosely of course...)

The other night, we stopped by my dad's to hang out. They were having a couple of friends over.

My dad invited us to have some dinner and stick around for awhile.

It's always nice to go home for a little bit, even if you've had two homes to go home to.

My daddy was mostly busy in the kitchen frying some okra (heavenly), chatting with friends, and making sure everyone had a place to sit. But he still found some time to be with Noah, who he absolutely adores. The attempted to throw a frisbee with him. He kinda got it. Sorta.

Noah likes running around his Granddaddy's house.

Lots of cool stuff to look at... like wind chimes, fountains, and flower beds (filled!with!dirt!).

He's figured out how to open the doors at my dad's house (they're the lever kind). We were busy chatting, thought Noah was playing near the stairs inside. Brad decided to check on him, and turns out, he was outside in the driveway. Poor Brad about had heart failure. Needless to say, we're bolting all doors now.

(he likes to look for the cicadas and tree frogs he hears there. our yard doesn't have a ton of trees like we're used to, so we don't hear as many summer noises. one of the downsides to living in a development like ours.)

While we were there, we had a milestone moment.

Noah pitched his first real fit.

He wanted to go outside, and we said no.

He proceeded to fling himself to the floor and cry.

It lasted all of two seconds, but this mama was ready, camera in hand.

Since that moment, he has thrown two more mini-fits... both of which included stomping.

And every single time he does it?

I end up laughing. I'm sure that's not the appropriate response, but it's just so out of character for him that it strikes me as hilarious. However, I'm pretty sure it's all related to the fact that we've messed with his schedule again. He's now getting up between 8-9am and going to bed around 11pm. It's the perfect schedule for us, but it's causing some nasty cranky side effects.

Anyways, hope everyone else had a great weekend!

Off to spend more time with the fam.