Chillaxin' over the gorgeous weekend

The weekend brought us the prettiest weather we've had in, oh, 90 days. Sirrusly. It's been a bad few months, weather-wise.

Our friends Honor and Doug came down from Chattanooga on Saturday with their kids Haley, Hannah and Jack. Most of Saturday was taken up by shopping for baseball gear, if you can believe that. Haley, Hannah, Nathaniel and Nicholas are all playing this Spring, and the equipment list was pretty extensive.

After shopping all afternoon Saturday, we grabbed Mexican for supper, got scoops of ice cream for dessert, and came home to a little MarioKart Wii before bed.

Haley was really good at it. She finished almost every race in third place or better.



Nick, who you know takes gaming very seriously, was focused.



Hannah was more relaxed about it and took it all in stride.



Nathaniel was like the Grand Marshal of the event, camped out in the corner of the sectional, shouting encouragement and direction to everyone with a remote in their hand. Oh, here's The Toothless Wonder now:



(Tousle his hair, put a green bow in it and give him a blue-and-purple muffler and he'd look JUST LIKE that Bakugan guy on his shirt.)

Jakey stuck to what he knows best: pouting because he doesn't have a working Wii remote and drooling like a fiend. Yogurt residue on cheek, CHECK. Wet shirt, CHECK. Shiny neck, CHECK PLUS.



Yesterday morning the kids wanted to get out on the trampoline early. Doug was kind enough to climb in with them and bounce them all over creation.



Weight limit? WHAT WEIGHT LIMIT?



We settled for only letting one adult on at a time. Other than that, all bets were off.

Doug is like a big kid and is so great with all of them. Here he was hugging Jake and Jack in the middle to keep them protected from the Big Kids.



And CLEARLY the protection was warranted.



It doesn't take but a few minutes before it all degenerates into chaos, though. Lots of flailing of parts and gnashing of teeth.



Every once in a while, we made the Big Kids take a time out so the little kids could jump. Jake can do a mean two-footed jump:



And Jack just LOVED the trampoline. He mostly just ran around the periphery, but I got some great pictures of him.



SO. HAPPY.



After about half an hour, I moved down to the swingset with the little kids. Jake loves to slide.



And static electricity loves him.



See?



Jake and Jack played very well together. Well, except that whichever one went up the ladder first usually kicked the lower kid in the face on the way up.



I loved Jack's romper with his Caboose clearly labeled.



Right as I took this picture, Jack shouted, "Jake tickin' me." Can you see it in Jake's face? He most certainly WAS kicking Jack's bottom to try to get him to SLIDE ALREADY.



Yesterday afternoon we piled in our cars and went to The Preserve, the site of MANY a wonderful afternoon for us. We love to climb among the rocks and explore the creek.



We met our friends the Oakmans for our hike ... Lisa, Honor and I were college roommates and remain the closest of friends. We wanted to take this picture on this particular rock ...



... because we remembered taking one there three years ago, back before Jack and Jake were even glimmers in our eyes. (And DJ wasn't in this one, because he was livin' the hiking high life in a backpack.)



We continued on our hike and eventually made it to one of the waterfalls, where Jack and Doug stopped to take in the view.



Haley wasted no time jumping across sections of the waterfall.



While Nathaniel preferred to get his feet wet, for some reason, even though the water must have barely been above freezing!



Nick spent his time cavorting about, splitting his pinkie finger open on a branch, pouting about his injury, soaking it in the running creek water, slipping and falling in the creek while soaking his finger, pouting about being wet and cold ... you know, THE USUAL.



There's so much to explore, we literally had to tear the kids away when it was time to leave.



Mike snapped a couple of pictures of us girls, which is rare. We're together a few times a year, but the camera never seems to catch "just us."



Jakey was upset because I wouldn't let him go sit in the water. You might recall that that is his Most Very Favorite Thing To Do, Forever and Ever, Amen.



But it was too freaking cold in that water yesterday. In these pictures, he was trying to slide down to the water so he could sit in it.



Jake is exceedingly sorry to let you know that I held my ground, I stood firm, and I didn't let him get in. He can hardly WAIT for Spring to arrive so that I'll let him get in. (I'm sure you'll be seeing pictures in a few months.)

It was another wonderful adventure in The Preserve! I'm looking forward to Spring almost as much as Jakey is, I think.