Vacation Part 2

On Thursday, we did a boating day. Caleb, Carter, and I tried kneeboarding for the first time. Carter got up on his 2nd try and stayed up really well. Caleb struggled more but did get up. I got up on my first try--not easily, and succeeded in going in and out of the wake as well as turning backwards. I was nervous though and flipped right back around. However, I struggled on my next two turns to get my knees up to the right position. Everyone else enjoyed tubing. We rented a pontoon boat in order to fit more people on the boat, so that made it difficult to do tight turns and thus throw the older boys off the tube. It was a great time though!

Austin's first time on the tube all by himself! He was very brave and loved it.

Me kneeboarding

Austin and Benson taking another turn together. We were worried about them knocking their heads together so it was a gentle ride.

Those not on the boat played at the water trampoline park! My boys loved making up Ninja Warrior courses.

We went swimming almost every day.

Clayton mid-air

Caleb mid-air

That's my almost 4-year-old swimming without floaties to his dad! He has been my youngest most confident swimmer. Yay!

Lindsey provided a fun activity at the end of the week of making some rockets. My boys loved it!

Bubbles on the back porch

The kids all wanted to help Grandpa let the air out of the blow-up boat!

Packing up in our room and Austin decided to entertain himself. 

We had plenty of space on this trip! The rooms were separate from the main house, which helped with those that needed to do nap times, and everyone had their own bathroom. :) 

Family picture before traveling home.

Coming home from vacation was a bit of a mess. We arrived home on a Sunday just after 11am for 1pm church. It is my month to play the organ (I switch off with someone else) so I had to be to church early, and I had a few things to prep for primary as the music leader. We came in the door to our house smelling like roadkill. The freezer was ajar and all the juices from the meats had leaked out all over the tile and some on the carpet that connects to the tile. It was not pleasant. We obviously lost everything in the freezer and the freezer itself. The freezer either died while we were gone (only 6 years old), or someone opened the freezer to grab something right before we left on vacation and didn't shut the freezer all the way. It is likely the 2nd scenario, but no one claims to have done that. Our freezer beeps if it is not shut all the way after about a minute, which I would have noticed since I was the last one out of the house. Not sure the cause, but the end result is still the same. Matt tackled that job while I unloaded the car, got the kids lunch, and got ready for church. 

Later that evening while Matt was at a seminary meeting, I noticed that the younger boys' bathroom sink was overflowed and underneath the sink was flooded and leaking. The boys hadn't noticed it and had not used that sink since being home. The drain was open and no water had been left on. Turns out that the overflow of the AC units is attached to this sink. It's important to run the water in that sink morning and night to prevent algae growth and back-up. Over the last 6 years since we've lived in the house, algae has been slowly growing in the pipes. With being gone a week, and the condensation of the AC units with the hot temperatures, the algae blocked the pipes and water slowly started backing up over the week. The particle board is a little warped underneath--we may need to replace it. But just another surprise from vacation that we initially thought was going to be another expensive fix (something wrong with the AC unit).