Nothing Parties Like a Rental

We recently returned from TEN DAYS vacationing with Sarah's family in a rented home on Lake Diane in Michigan. (Acknowledgement: Tim is a saint). No serious injuries, no fighting...just excessive beer drinking and eye rolling. With possibly too much sassy-ness. It was a good time. Here are the pictures to prove it.

Our view of Lake Diane

Felicity has been "talking" up a storm and Tim was able to spend extra time with her during vacation. This was really nice for him because he's at work or she's sleeping/getting ready for bed when he is home. They had a really adorable cooing conversation one afternoon while the big girls were napping.

Speaking of the big girls, they LOVED going out on Grandpa's boat and going fast. A few times, we took them out on the paddle boat. But it wasn't fast enough and they asked to go back to the house. Truly their parents' children.

Daddy, Vivian, Aunt Maria, Miriam

 So in general, there was a lot of this:

Nope, she's totally sober.

 And, of course, this:

Totally wiped out.

Some outlaws, for whatever reason, doing this:

Tim, Ryan, Tom

Maybe a dash of this:

Two peas in a crazypod.

  With Stella doing this:

"Someone please help me."

 Oh, and plenty of this:

"A naptime cocktail. Cheers!"

But wait! That's not all! We got to go wedding and bridesmaids dress shopping for Aunt Annette's wedding!

Unfortunately, a certain someone (who reads this blog) is forbidden from viewing the said wedding dress. 

You know who you are. But in case anyone is still trying to figure it out...above, right. Cute couple, huh?

So instead all you all get to see is pictures of Wellman sisters etc. at the store.

OH! And have we introduced Michael's new gf?!?! Meet Patty. Or as we call her, Pepper. Everyone around here needs a good nickname. She grew up in Milan, Italy, went to college at Purdue, works in Chicago, met Michael AT CHURCH. We're fans.

Yeah, we're not entirely sure how he snagged such a cute girl either.

Alright, on with the story...so the Sunday of our vacation, Uncle Michael and Aunt Nichole did a Tough Mudder. This is 10+ miles of running with 20+ obstacles that include barbed wire, fire, lots of mud, swimming through ice water, getting shocked by live wires and MORE MORE MORE. And they loved it. Only it didn't love them. Apparently, somewhere on the website there was a warning not to drink the water you were swimming through. (Do you know where this is going?) So Monday night/Tuesday morning, we find out they did drink the water. And they were very, very, very sick from some waterborne illness/bacteria. Yuck. No more details needed. But they both needed some rest...almost impossible with 14ish other people running around the house. Oh, and it was raining off and on. A small band of us were off to Toledo. First the children's museum, which even the big/college kids liked! 

These two big girls had a blast and burned off lots of energy! It was a great place - we'd recommend it.

Then we tried to see the cathedral...

It was massive and beautiful on the outside.

And very locked up for the day. Bummer.

Nichole and Michael recovered. And claim they'd do another Tough Mudder. It was that fun, apparently.

Our ranks continued to swell when Uncle Tom and Aunt Marilyn came to visit one evening.

We played games (don't really understand the one below yet...something about hitting a beer bottle off a pole with a frisbee).

Enjoyed a fire.

And talked.

There's more that we didn't get pictures of, like Uncle John's fireworks or Vivian vomiting or praying together or the never ending games of Tripoly or the hike with a thousand ticks and so on. (We still don't know why she got sick, but she said it was because she ate too much. Hummm.) 

So a big thanks to Sarah's family for an exciting, relaxing, entertaining ten days.