Ravenscroft Ruckus: Weekend at CharRoy

So as I said before I've gotten to meet a lot of great friends from Jack's May 08 birth board from Pregnancy Weekly. Melissa is one of the girls whom I have grown close to and love spending time with. Her sister's family lived in Muncie for a year or two working as volleyball coaches for Ball State, so we got to see each other more often than we otherwise would have. Melissa lives in Wisconsin with two of THE MOST adorable little girls on the face of the Earth and her husband Joe whom I also adore.

Mel (as she's known on the board) has posted pictures of her girls playing at her parent's lake house on Facebook. Shannon (another May 08'er) and I fell in love with the beautiful scenery and decided to invite ourselves and our families to visit for a weekend. So after about 6 months of planning, Jason and I headed north with the boys to stay at Charlotte and Roy Everett's place on a lake in a little town whose name I cannot spell or even pronounce! It was a fabulous weekend with good friends, good weather and good food.

Jack spent hours playing with his bath trains in the sand...busting buffers and chuffing on the rails.

Jason and I got a good lesson in relaxing on our parenting and allowing Jack to have fun. The first day we made Jack wear his life vest and Jason pretty much held his hand the entire time he was in the water. After watching the other kids play, we decided it was time to lighten up a little and let Jack be a kid with the others. Him and Lily and Layla (Melissa's girls) enjoyed playing together in the warm shallow water. Amazingly all of the kids got along terrifically. There wasn't any fighting or arguing....everyone just had a really good time.

There was lots of fishing going on off that dock. Shannon's little boy Kyle caught the biggest fish all weekend. Melissa was able to hook a big'un too! And Jack was just happy to practice his casting...which I have to say he got pretty good at while we were there.

Graham (being a big 7 weeks now) enjoyed just relaxing in Momma's arms or in his swing by the lake.

Shannon's husband, Wade, took their kids, Kyle and Kaitlin, out for a ride in the paddle boat. Kyle did an awesome job showing off his mad skills learned at swimming lessons. Kaitlin preferred to sit with dad in the boat.

Mr. Graham

The beautiful Miss Lily Harper

My big boy...he looks so grown here

The last night we were staying we had a bonfire for the kids and roasted some s'mores. Wade can sure roast a mean marshmellow...and Melissa does a great job putting the s'mores together. The only thing that could have made the night any better was if we were able to get rid of the mosquitoes. They were so horrible we couldn't leave the house at dusk. The last night poor Joe's legs got eaten up. He must have had no less than 100 bites on each of his legs. Good thing he's a bad mo' fo. A lesser man would have been curdled up in a corner crying.