Nancy and Val rented some boats for us to do some water sports and fish. I was glad that Rachel was willing to be brave (it helped to have some peer pressure from her cousins) and she did some fun cliff jumps, tried water skiing and the knee board. Brandon had to force Andrew to try knee boarding (meaning he threw him off the boat), but Brandon even went out with him and they got on it together. Afterwards Andrew said, "I hated it. I think I am going to throw up!" My favorite part of boating was when Carson finally fell asleep on me and took a nap. Uncle Chris didn't disappoint and water-skied in his patriotic speedo in an attempt to embarrass the children! It was super funny!
At nighttime, we played games and watched movies. One of the highlights was playing bean boozled with all the adults and kids. You spin the spinner and then choose the color of jellybean. It could be totally disgusting or a normal jellybean (examples: spoiled milk/coconut, stinky socks/tutti-fruitti, toothpaste/berry blue, barf/peach, canned dog food/chocolate pudding). It was so funny!
We went on a river rafting trip with all the kids except for Carson and Ryan who stayed with Grandma Nancy. In our raft was the girls, Brandon and I, and Gpa Val and we enjoyed accents from Brandon and Val's stories and jokes. Then we got into a river waterfight with the other raft full of the boy cousins and pretty much everyone ended up in the river at one time or another (Brandon did a cannonball to splash the other raft as well). The kids were such good sports about it! At one point, Rachel said to her cousins, "We have the funnest family ever!" I was so glad to hear her say that! Well, with about 30 minutes left in the rafting trip, it started sprinkling. Then it full-on rained cats and dogs for about 20 minutes!! We were paddling as fast as we could to get out of there and were so glad when we were able to dock. BUT, we had no cell service and we were still awhile from our pick up time and the kids were freezing. The dad's tipped up the raft and had all the kids huddle together underneath the raft. We had a few dry towels and they shared those while they waited as patiently as they could have. Such a fun memory!
One afternoon, we had the opportunity to pull out the paddle boards and Carson loves to go with us. He lays on his tummy or gets in crawling position and holds super still as we paddle. He also learned to say "turtle" on this trip and it was adorable (also pretty incredible that turtle is one of his first words after mama/dada - he does love Rachel's turtle).
Kendall was dancing around the living area where we were staying and she told me she was born to dance, and if she falls while dancing, she just adds a dance move, so no one will notice. Great life lesson there, Kendall!
While growing up, I was the oldest cousin on both sides and really did not have close relationships with any of my cousins. I am grateful that my kids all have close cousins on both sides and that they have lots of memories with them.
