Fun at the Lake

After meeting with Cindy's family we decided to head to my parents' lakehouse. It's one of my favorite places on earth. It was a risk, we had only been home one week and we'd be without Zach for a few days. We knew all of that but, frankly, I needed to get out of my house for awhile. The house was dirty, it was hot (no a/c), Zach was working a lot, etc, etc. Plus I'm not good at sitting around twiddling my thumbs.

We were planning on just a day or so but then Zach surprised us and drove up for the day (3 hours one way!). So good to have the whole family there. And the kids LOVED it.

Zach, hotflawedmama and the new boys. Teaching them all about life jackets and how they keep you from dying. :)



The best darn daddy.



Just kind of loved this image. 4 trunks and 1 swimsuit.



This is the picture I like to call "attachment bootcamp". I said before that Tomas struggles with his feelings towards me. He wants to love me so much, but his past has taught him not to trust women because they consistently fail him. So I thought maybe I could swim with him in the water, swim eye to eye. He rarely looks me in the eye and it's hard to work on attachment with a 6-yr-old, let me tell you that. So I wanted him to be able to see he could trust me to keep him safe in the water, at the very least. 45 minutes (yes you read that right) 45 minutes after we started he finally looked me in the eye and smiled. It will be a long road but he is such an amazing little boy, whatever I need to do to prove I'm trustworthy and to prove my love, I'll do it. This kid is worth it, I promise you that.



Marcus (my brother) and his mini me, Trysten. Their hair ends up the same way after a boat ride.



The kids watching Marcus and his wakeboarding tricks (he's got mad skills). Loved all of their smiles and giggles. Tomas even gave a thumbs up-something I didn't even know he knew about.



Here we have the whole family on 2 tubes. If you look closely, Tariku is probably the only kid enjoying it.



Here we have Dailah on a fake phone, bossing someone around. Classic Dailah.



This is better.



I mean, seriously. This boy looks right in my eyes and and breaks my heart nearly every time.



Babies in a boat.



3 Ethiopians in a lake in Iowa. I kept thinking this would be the beginning of a great joke but I couldn't come up with a punchline. Any ideas?