WITL-THURSDAY

After all our hard work at home yesterday, and the fact that we really haven't been anywhere really fun lately, I asked the girls if they wanted to go swimming at a local lake once Yasmeen was done with Band Camp.  At first, both girls weren't too interested, exclaiming "fish pee in there", and that they didn't want any fish swimming around them.  Leena was also weary about any bugs that might be out in "the wild".  When I explained that we could just go and see how we liked it, and maybe just play on the sand (for Adam's sake), they reluctantly agreed.  Besides, I think they feared that if we stayed home today, we'd have to do some more cleaning ;-)

Time to wake up...

After Band Camp, we came home and called our neighbors to see if they wanted to join us for our outing, and they did.  We met up a little after noon, made a quick pit stop at the local Subway for lunch to take along, and headed out.  After hitting some traffic on 206 and getting slightly detoured (thanks to my useless TomTom), we finally arrived at Round Valley Recreation Area just before 2!  We set up our stuff right in front of an open area close to the water and the kids all ran in...even my girls!!  Turns out, they actually didn't mind the lake...and in fact, quite liked it.  No fish to be seen, and certainly no fish pee that we could tell :-). Within minutes of the kids getting into the water, a lifeguard came over and told us that we had to move, as we had set up in an area reserved only for "bus groups", and unfortunately, although my van is spacious, it certainly isn't a bus.  So...we packed everything up again and moved about 50 feet to the left of where we were and set up our stuff all over again.  Once we were settled in, the kids got back into the water, making the most of an overcast, but warm, day.  Adam wanted in right away, too...so I put his life vest on, and off we went.  I took Mohammed's waterproof pocket cam and filmed the kids in the water.  Yasmeen got an underwater shot of herself that is great!  After a while, the kids got out, we ate lunch (yep, won't be skipping that again), and played in the sand.  About 45 minutes after we'd arrived, we felt a raindrop hit us.  It WAS overcast, but the forecast didn't call for rain at all, so we hung out a while.  The lifeguards didn't close the beach down, so the kids grabbed a chance to get back in the water before it was too late.  Even Adam was in on it, so that meant I had to get in, too.  Marlo and her kids were great company and I don't think we would have stayed as long as we did had it not been for her calm demeanor and the fact that since we were going to get wet anyway, it didn't matter that it was sprinkling!  We managed to stay a total of 2 hours before the rain started to get more steady, and even though there wasn't thunder or lightning, we decided to call it a day, and head back into town for ice cream.  

Our neighbors...

This boy loves the water...

 Great underwater shot, Yasmeen!

 All the kids...

 Buds!

He LOOOOOVES Nicki...

Getting down to business!!

After packing and up and changing into our dry clothes, we left Round Valley, and headed to the Polar Cub ice cream place.  It's literally a truck stop hole in the wall along the highway that you could miss if you blinked, but it has some of the best ice cream around.  On the way there and continuing home, we played the "ABC Game" that we were made aware of by another friend of mine, Judy.  What you do is find a word (that you physically SEE) that begins with each letter of the alphabet and whoever gets to Z first, wins!  Well, it's pretty crazy sometimes when the competitive streak in all of us comes out.  We always get stuck on Q, V, X, Y, Z.  We are all desperately wishing to pass a Quik Chek, or see an Xterra on the road, but since we're ALL looking for the same letter at times, and we can't use the same word, we can get pretty aggressive.  It really does pass that time, though, and its a lot of fun trying to see what words you can spot.

We got home around 5pm and unpacked all the bags we had taken along.   Then I checked email and went through the regular mail.  I finally got MY OFFICIAL notification from the Medical Board that I am indeed licensed and ready to practice medicine again!  My start date at work is tentatively set for August 9th and I'm both excited and nervous.  We had leftovers for dinner, and cupcakes, again.  Mohammed had a meeting at the firehouse, so I took Adam up for his shower.  Yasmeen entertained him for a while, then almost had a shower herself when he decided it was a whole lot of fun to fill up his shampoo bottle with water and dump it all over her.  Once he was finally done,  it was the girls turn to shower so that they could watch him afterward while I showered.  When we were all clean and cozy, we watched a little TV, and then it was bedtime.  Since I was updating my blog, my bedtime was a little delayed, but so worth it to be able to download my pics from the day and see my Week In The Life coming together.  

Yasmeen is still dry at this point:

Huddling together in our bed--with Yasmeen on the phone, as usual!

Until tomorrow...and on to day 5 of my Week In The Life!