St. Louis & The Lake July 2014

Another first for Graham...airplane trip!  We headed to St. Louis to visit the family and also partake in the annual Lake of the Ozarks trip.  We arrived on a Wednesday after a very uneventful day of flying and the Claytons hosted all of our extended family for a little party.  It was so great to see everyone but, as always, too short of a visit.  Graham had a long day with all that traveling and then being held by many people that by 8:00 he was a bit of a mess.  He had a 45 minute meltdown and we could not get him calmed.  Finally, we got him settled and he had a great night sleep in a pack n' play for the first time.

On Thursday, we drove to the Lake of the Ozarks to meet up with a group of friends that Annie and I have known our entire lives.  

On Friday, my Dad rented a boat and we took a cruise around the lake.  Jason, Greg, & Annie did some water skiing and we got lunch at Shorty Pants.  Graham did suprisingly well wearing a life jacket and just slept most of the time on the boat.  Parker loved the ride and was enthralled by the water skiing, saying "Daddy, I want to do that when I am older!"

At the beach that afternoon:

  
On Saturday, the Dads did a little fishing with the kids.  Many fish were caught, although most were little sun fish.

Then we hit the pool for the day.  By this point, Parker was very comfortable in the pool and just swam around it by herself (although not evident in the video below).  We were very impressed that she could pull herself out of the water at the corner of the pool!

We had planned in advance to have Angie Trost use our cameras to get some group photos of us.  We coordinated our clothes and picked out a decent spot at the condo for the "photo shoot".  Of course, it is impossible to get all of the kids to cooperate for such an event, so Parker and Charlie were not very smiley but we got some decent pictures.

Now that all of the "kids" have had kids of their own, the group is very large.  But we still manage to gather many people at someone's condo each night, especially the night for the big dice game (Left Right Center).  I am proud to say that Greg was the big winner this year!

On Sunday, it was time to head back to St. Louis.  We had plans to meet up with my girlfriends and their families and met everyone at the Rackers house.  Here is a picture of Graham and his buddy, Nora Besmer, who was born the same day as him!

Sunday night was low key dinner at my parents house.  Parker had so much fun with her cousins all weekend and still talks about them every day.

Pittsburgh & 4th July 2014

We headed to Pittsburgh for the 4th of July weekend.  This was our first road trip with Graham and since he is not a lover of riding in the car, we were a little nervous about it.  It is a 4.5 hour drive.  Parker was awesome, using her brand new headphones to watch videos on the ipad for the last part of the drive.  Graham did great until the last 20 minutes when he pretty much screamed the whole way.  I sat in the back in between them most of the drive and so he was looking me right in the eye, crying, surely thinking "Why don't you just pick me up??  I don't want to be strapped in this seat anymore!!" But we made it and enjoyed a delicious pork taco dinner (with margaritas) that Gennie had prepared.  

On Friday, the Johnsons were hosting a 4th of July party so we prepared for that.  The girls wore matching outfits, complements of Gennie, but alas Parker would not cooperate with a group picture.

The party was a great success, with delicious food and fireworks fun.  We didn't get very many photos, but here are some of Clare and Parker rolling down the hill.  Otis enjoyed lots of play time with his neighbor girlfriend, Tess.

On Saturday, everyone (except Graham and I) went to the Mt. Lebanon pool and we went to the Hofbrauhaus in the South Side that night for dinner.

Parker snuggling with her Bro.