Jaden and Kirsten were so tired from a fun week at their Mom's that they slept until about 10am everyday, except for the Thursday before Shelley arrived - that was cookie baking day!! I'd hoped to only have two helpers, but Jaden and Kirsten were both up at 7am with Nicolas and Adison and ready to help!
We made dozens for cookies, a couple of cakes and then I felt I was ready for everyone to arrive. I spent Friday doing what I hoped would be a quick flick around dusting, but what I realized was there were milk spatters all over my house - the joys of sippy cups that flirt milk everywhere. I don't normally inspect my surfaces that closely except when we have guests, so it took an hour or so of cleaning to get rid of most of them, not that Shelley etc really cared.
I met everyone at the airport (my wonderful friend Katrina looked after Nicolas and Adison for me) and unfortunatly they chose the weekend when we had a heat advisory in place. It was 104 degrees (36 degrees C) when I picked them up and everyone was in jeans!!
Lianne thought her bag was lost, but luckily it came through eventually and we got home and had a glass of wine. We were overwhelmed with presents and Nicolas was (and still is) very proud of his first pair of big boy boxer shorts.
We hoped that the kids would sleep until about 6am but no such luck. Nicolas and Adison were in the same room for the first time and they woke me up with a blood curdling scream about 5am. Nicolas had woken up in the dark and screamed, which made Adison scream. I realized that everyone else was already awake - Jake woke Shelley up at 3am and Lianne and Gayle woke up a bit later. Jamie was trying to sleep on the couch in the living room with out much success. We decided just to get up, have breakfast and get to the lake early so it wouldn't be too hot.
Jamie tried water skiing while some of us hung out and relaxed by the dock and then Stephanie took us girls out on the tube.Lianne and Adison relax on the boat.
Jamie gets excited about skiing. 
Jamie gets ready to ski
After several attempts he made it up but didn't get too far. I was impressed that he stood up as it took me about 5 day's of trying.
Woody was then brave (or crazy) enough to let Adam and Jamie take the boat out again so Jamie could take a turn driving it. 
It was hot but not too bad and the lake was really warm, so we just hung out in the water most of the time.
When Adam and Jamie got back Jamie proved he was a real man and jumped about 30 feet into the water off the next door dock. It doesn't look that high, but it is. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the terrified look on his face as he went down, but it would have made a great photo!
I've never been in a tube before, I saw too many people injured in Spain and Greece when I was on holiday years ago. Much as I love Woody and Adam, I wouldn't trust either of them not to try to get me to go so fast I'd fall out of the tube. I do trust Stephanie totally, especially when I have Nicolas in the tube with me. We went VERY slowly, but I enjoyed it.Gayle went next and was much braver than me and went really fast. She was just smiling all the time.
The bravest one of all was Lianne who was going so fast she jumped the wake and ended up going way outside the line of the boat and getting knocked all over the place. She still really enjoyed it until she saw the bruise on her bum the next day!!
Adam, Woody and Jamie went tubing while we took the exhausted kids back to Woody and Stephanie's to order pizza. Having been up for about 12 hours already Jake was so tired, as was everyone else. The kids did so well and after pizza and Stephanie's wonderful peach cobbler we left for home about 2pm to get ready for the party in the evening.
The kids fell asleep in the car and didn't even wake up when I put them in bed. When we tried to wake them after an hour it was nearly impossible. Everyone else had a sleep while I got ready for everyone arriving.
