Lake Wateree, SC

Smith Mountain Lake, VA

We spent two beautiful days at a home on Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia with our friends Stephen, Sarah, Isaac, and Theo Sours.

Graham thinks the fishing boat goes too fast, the pontoon aka 'the party boat' goes pretty fast, but tolerable, the jet ski was out of the question, but the paddle boat was just right. Poor timid child! He inherited his mother's wimpy ways.

Stephen, Theo, and Isaac

Graham loved just sitting on the party boat when it wasn't moving. He and Theo took turns honking the horn, which they found wildly amusing.

Graham did some fishing, although we didn't catch much.

Graham and Theo enjoyed racing trucks around and around and around...

One sad, small fish, which was thrown back

The girls' first boat ride. It was a hit initially. By the end they were both screaming.

Isaac was such a great help with the babies!

David, Stephen, and Isaac jumped from the cliffs into 80 ft deep water

Here's the wild side of me coming out: no VA fishing license (D did buy one for himself) but fishing with my son's pole anyway. What a bad, brave girl I am. And the daughter of a retired Conservation Officer. Shocking.

Just chatting about cars

Daddy promised Graham a surprise when he came back from the base last weekend. We gave him a hint: It's something to use in the boat. Graham got a big grin on his face and said, "It's Josh and Amber!" Josh and Amber are our friends from Atlanta who stayed with us last week while Amber attended a conference at Duke. They were part of our small group while they lived in Durham. We miss them dearly. Apparently, Graham does, too.

After the initial disappointment that Josh and Amber didn't come out of the Walmart bag, Graham seemed to enjoy using his new Cars fishing pole.

Here we have a typical scene: Graham is trying to build a train set while Bea and Inga proceed to destroy it. Graham started to solve this problem by pushing his sisters out of the way. When I told him that he wasn't allowed to push them, he looked at me and said, "I'm not pushing them. I'm just moving them." So now he's not allowed to move them either. He has to ask for help. I often here frantic "Help, HELP!" calls when I step out of the room for a second.

Stinkers.

Graham and David went out on the boat this week, but didn't catch any fish....this time.

Look at my one beautiful little tooth!

Nap time

I think this is a glimpse of Inga as a teenager. I don't like the look she's giving me.

Bath time is always fun at our house!