Laura loves to swim with her Nana. Just recently Laura has gotten brave enough to swim out to the rope and sit on the floater-things. When she gets back to shore, she has always has a huge smile on her face and is ready to do it "o moe dime!" (one more time)
It is really hard to get Laura out of the water...and she always wants to have someone with her, too. Fortunately, Nana and Granddad are up to the task. They have a great time floating around and playing with her.
This was the first weekend that Granddad and Daddy decided to try their hand at fishing off the docks. Laura was very interested. She wanted to help with putting the worm on the hook...
...and help hold the fishing pole...
...and even help hold on to the fish that Granddad caught. She was so excited as he was reeling it in saying over and over "Randrand taught a fish!!" (Granddad caught a fish!)...but as soon as the fish wiggled on the hook, Laura jumped about a mile and wanted nothing else to do with fishing or fish. All we heard the rest of the weekend was "Fish huwt Wawa." (Fish hurt Laura). We tried explaining that it didn't even touch her -- but she was convinced she got hurt! Kids are so funny sometimes!
On our last boat ride of the season, Laura decided that she needed double life jacket protection. She was even concerned about the adults safety trying to get us all to put on life jackets!
We had a great summer with Nana and Granddad both at the lake and at home. There are many evenings that we will ask Laura as we are putting her to bed what her favorite part of the day was. On days that were spent with Nana, Laura's response always is "Ummmmm, NANA!!!" We are already looking forward to next summer and all the new things Laura will get to do and experience at the lake.
We also spent a few days at the lake. Laura and MeMa had a great time floating around at the beach area.
A fun picture of Laura playing at the light table at the museum.
While MeMa was visiting, Laura only wanted her to read books and sing. Anytime Shawn and I would start singing one of her favorite songs, she would say, "Sop it Mommy Daddy! MeMa doit!"
A lot of time was spent watching Laura play outside. And yes...Laura is wearing a winter hat. She recently found it in her closet and she has decided that it should be a part of every outfit she wears. Again, Laura was the most happy if "MeMa doit!" when it came to being pushed on the swings, helped up the ladder, or helped down the slide.
Shawn and Laura at an outdoor movie that we went to. We saw The Princess and the Frog and during the (somewhat) scary parts, Laura covered her ears and looked at me and said "What's happening, momma?" It was really cute!
Laura has finally learned how to say "cheese!" and smile for pictures...but she will still only do it when she is good and ready. Whatever you do, don't try to force her or you won't see her smile for hours:)
As mentioned above, swimming was Laura's favorite thing to do. Every morning after we had been at the beach for a while, she would say, "Wawa go to pa-ul?: (Laura go to the pool?) She would have stayed in all day if we didn't make her get out for lunch and naptime! And the life jacket she is wearing was great -- it gave her lots of freedom of movement with the security to know she wasn't going to sink.
I'm not entirely sure what she is doing...but she sure is cute!
A family picture at the Kure Beach fishing pier. There were huge pelicans just hanging out on this pier and you could get close enough to almost touch them (though I'm not sure why anyone would!) Laura talked about the "pawlcins" she saw all week.
We went down to the boardwalk one night to enjoy some of the rides. Laura loved the carousel and every time we were anywhere near the boardwalk she told us, "My wanna wide da howses!"
Shawn took 2 private surf lessons while we were there. He had a great time and was able to catch a ton of waves. Laura didn't really watch him surf, but when asked what her daddy was doing, she would reply, "My dada wen ski!" (my daddy went skiing!...I could never get her to say surfing.) Photo taken by Julian Kehaya
We had a great time at the Fort Fisher Aquarium. Laura was really impressed by this large alligator. She also liked the jelly fish and the albino alligator. She talked about what she saw the rest of the week.
Much to our surprise, Laura loved playing mini-golf. She got her own little plastic club and a ball and just hit it around the green while Shawn and I played each hole for real. When she got close to the cup, she would sit down and try to roll the ball in...too cute! And just for the record -- I won by 1 point!
This was about our 45th attempt at a family picture. It still isn't perfect, but it will do! We had a wonderful time and can't wait to go back to the beach next year!!