sprinkled

HOT HOT HOT! This was a scorcher. We stayed in most of the day and played. Dennis took some monster naps today, so much so that we were almost concerned. Maybe he was in reverse hibernation--sleeping when it's hot so that he can function again when it's cool. Not a bad idea. More likely he was all played out from being around his cousins nonstop.

We all had breakfast with Granny before she headed back to Dothan, then we (Mom, Kristin, and I) tried to nap while the children napped. We weren't very successful. We just had no energy whatsoever. The children had plenty of energy, however, and we enjoyed watching them play with the new toy that arrived in the mail today for Dennis. We had e-Bayed for him a vintage Fisher Price Pop Up Camper set to keep in our camper. It has a 4WD type vehicle that pulls a camper that actually folds up into a small box just as ours does, and when 'popped' out features a sink and stove and dinette table and two tented bunkends, also just as ours does. It came with two motorcycles, a boat that fits on top of the tow vehicle, and a storage box that goes on top of the camper (which contains two lounge chairs and a picnic table and benches), and a family of 5 plus dog. For a toy made in 1979, it looks wonderful, and the kids played with it for hours. Mirella and Dennis enjoyed putting the people in the car (or their mouths) and camper, and Caedmon enjoyed folding and unfolding the camper and hooking it to the car (and occasionally trying to fold up the people inside the camper). It was money well spent, for every time they saw the set all put away in the box, they got it out again and played with it.

While dinner was grilling, I set up the Elmo sprinkler that Gran bought for the little ones to keep at her house (Pop brought it to the lake for us), and I suited Dennis up in his swim diaper, trunks, and Tevas. He took a few seconds to decide if he liked the idea of a sprinkler, but soon he was running and playing in it like children love to do. Mirella was right behind him in joining in the fun, crawling up to the jets of water and putting her hands in, then crawling her entire self in. Caedmon watched from the swing for a good while before we convinced him to give it a try, and soon enough he was giggling and soaking wet from head to toe. Daddy/Uncle David twirled the kids in the air and through the spray, doubling their fun, and then when they were done, sat in the middle of it to cool down from his hard day of dock construction. Sprinkler play followed by supper and a boat ride wore the babies out, and we put them to bed exhausted and happy. We rounded out our day with brownies and popcorn and girl talk while Pop and Daddy ran into town to take care of things for us. I'd like to think we enjoyed some lazy summer days at the lake, but laziness just doesn't happen with 3 children under 3 running around. We all had such fun, though.