Mini-Vacay at the Lake

We took our second little mini-vacay of the summer and went to the lake.  Lake Conroe to be exact.  We stayed at a recently renovated resort that had TONS to do for the kids!

We started off spending every day at the many pools they offered...

This is the bucket pool.  The big girls loved it! The little girls, well, it's a little hard to love being dumped on by water so forceful that it knocks you over! A lot of places have these now and they would be perfect for 2- and 3-year-olds except those bucket dumps are just awful!  But it didn't bother Ashley. She learned how to wait for the bucket to dump, then she would haul bootie and jump in front of anyone who dared sit at the top of the slide, and she'd bolt down, ready to do it all over again.  Reagan, not so much.  She preferred the outer edge or better yet, the little toddler pool. 

Here is Reagan turning around.  She's thinking maybe this bucket pool isn't such a good thing.

Ahhhh....much better.

There was also a lazy river, which again Reagan did not enjoy because there was a little water that sprayed on you from time to time, but everyone else really liked it.  And there were BIG slides. Kaitlyn and Mackenzie had never done big slides before. Another first for them but it made me a little nervous.

We had dinner at this super yummy place called Fajita Jacks!

And what's better than free ice cream for the kids?  Except it required a bit of stain removal work on my part to get it all out.  Well-worth it though. Look at these happy kids!

And then there was bedtime....

Remember the toddler free-for-all of our beach trip?  Well here we go with Round 2!  But look at this - this is my favorite picture of the whole trip. These little faces are giddy at the idea they are sleeping in a big girl bed, and they got to share a room with their big sisters too!  I had 4 very giggly girls that took a long time to fall asleep.  Ashley of course was the ring leader.  That kid NEVER stops!  And she was performing for everyone else in the room.  I didn't know whether to laugh or beat her little bottom for carrying on for so long.

Here is Reagan's favorite activity of the trip - watching the bucket from half a mile away dump water on the pool!  She was fascinated by it, as long as she could watch from a VERY safe distance.  And she constantly rallied her sisters and myself to join her in watching the bucket dumping activity!

Here is the view she actually had. See the slides...now look to the left of those teeny tiny palm trees and there is a yellow square about the size of a dot in the very center of the photo.  THAT, my friends, is the bucket! 

Mike took the big girls to jet ski on the lake. I was jealous I couldn't be there. I was holding down the fort while the little girls took a nap. But our place was right on the lake and I was pleasantly surprised when they zipped up to our backyard!  I was so nervous with them going on the jet ski. I felt better when I saw him just puttering along. Even I thought he should speed up!  I asked him about it when he got home and he informed me that when I saw him they were in a no wake zone.  And to think I was all relieved! Glad I didn't know they went any faster until after they got back!

Check out this catfish! Kaitlyn and Mackenzie caught a total of 4 catfish plus a few others. Unfortunately we were not prepared at all to bring home any fish.  That would have been awesome!  But stuffing it in our cooler next to our milk and juice boxes just didn't sound very appealing.

Here's one of Mackenzie's catfish.

Reagan posing for me while running around in the back.  I didn't let them out by the lake until the last day.  Too much to keep an eye on but they wanted to go see all the fishing hoopla!

Ashley, running away as always, and as always, delighted with herself for doing so!