Monday – Twin Lakes, Washington
Today was the best. day. ever. And apologies in advance cause this post is a bit long.
Morning on the lake – sun is rising, water is calm, and not many are out and about yet.
Today was such an awesome day for Carter – I could not have been more happy or proud of him. A little background … Carter is a very contemplative kid. It takes him awhile to warm up to new people and new situations. He kind of has a tendency to hide behind Jeremy or I until he gets a little more comfortable. When he went inner tubing yesterday with Jeremy, we were actually really surprised and of course extremely pleased that he did it.
But today. Wow. Today he was a kid who just loved all that life threw at him.
The day started with breakfast, visiting with family, and playing in the field.
Volleyball soccer, the larger cabin in the woods, baby Indigo that the boys L-O-V-E-D, and baby Indigo with her daddy Adrian:
Around 11am when it really started warming up, we got our swim suits on and headed into the water. We started on the dock fishing when our cousins Susan and Eric paddle boarded over. Eric offered up the paddle board to me and I jumped at the chance. I have never done it and have always wanted to try and ohmygosh I totally want one now! I will attribute how great my experience was to the fact that the water was SO calm when Susan and I were out there. I had so much fun and we paddled back and let Jeremy take a spin on one. Then we needed to get the paddle boards back to the house, but Carter REALLY wanted to try. Eric waded one into the shallow area, helped Carter stand up and then paddle around a little bit. He did so great – he kept his balance and stuck it out for longer than I expected, huge grin on his face (and unfortunately we didn’t have a camera ready for him).
Eric falling off the paddleboard (you can see his splash), our family on the boat, & the boys fishing:
Carter loved walking in as far as he could go with keeping his head above water, then just barely lose touch with the ground and “run swim” back to where he could get footing. I spent probably an hour in the water with him where he would do this, then switch it up to grab his fishing pole and work on his casting while in the water.
While we were back on the dock, Carter wanted me to jump in the water and I tried to negotiate with him that if I jumped in, he should as well. He still was too nervous to get to a point where his feet can’t touch the bottom, so after I jumped in a few times, I got him to climb down on the ladder on the dock, keeping his feet on it the whole time. We did that for awhile until Aunt Sherry came paddling back in the kayak.
I have taken Carter on the kayak before so he totally wanted to go again. We paddled out into the lake and then I handed over the paddle to him to let him try his hand at it. After a bit, we headed back in and Carter really wanted to try kayaking all by himself. I got us into the shallow water and got off the kayak and handed over the paddle and off he went. At one point I basically swam after him, holding onto the back of the kayak because he was paddling out towards the end of the dock. Once again, loved it with a huge grin on his face.
I finally was able to convince him to come in for lunch. In the meantime, Jeremy had been trying for two hours to get Gavin down for a nap. We switched it up and Jeremy took Carter over to play in the field while I got Gavin down for a nap. The boys came back not long after and it had cooled off a bit, so I changed into clothes, but Carter still wanted to swim. I followed after him with my big camera while he swam and fished some more.
I couldn’t decide on this first photo – I really like the image of Carter at the end of the dock, but you have to crop up to him to really notice it is him. On the full version I LOVE the moody sky above the water and the long dock leading out into the lake.
And then it happened.
We were at the end of the dock and I spotted Gavin and Jeremy heading towards us when I hear “OH NO! NO! NO! NO!” and a bunch of crying. I turn around in time to watch Carter’s fishing pole sink down to the bottom of the lake. Hysterics now, because you can NEVER GET ANOTHER ONE LIKE THAT. And yes, I am the mom that takes photos of tears streaming down her kids face. But the best was Gavin just hanging out with that look on his face.
In the meantime Gavin got a sliver on the bottom of his foot that we could not get out. Even after trying with a needle. So, poor kid got it cleaned and band-aided for the time being. After dealing with that, we had a lazy dinner, but Carter REALLY wanted to go back in the water. And he really wanted me to go in the water too. At the end of the dock.
So I put my swim suit back on and we all headed off to the end of the dock at six at night where I proceeded to jump in on the count of three for probably over an hour. And it was a blast. The kids had so much fun – Carter kept going on the ladder and got to a point where he would hold on with his hands and do his “run swim” on the ladder. We watched the sun set together and laughed as I kept splashing them.
It was just a perfect day, and then was topped off by another night swim where the guys only jumped in (minus Jeremy – we were in our PJs when they grabbed us). We sat on the dock, chatting with family and watching the night sky and it felt like the absolute perfect way for summer to end.