Vacation 2018 - Part 1 (Lake)

I've got some catching up to do! I mentioned in my last post that I took an extra long vacation this year. We split the time up over a few different locations, but started off vacation at my parent's lake house.  Because this was the weekend before the 4th of July, there were a lot of things going on in my little home town.  

The lake is always the place to be on the 4th, and the weather was perfect. The girls (and I) got in some good tubing before the lake got too choppy with all of the boats. 

Kate has determined she wants to be a professional tuber and has no fear when it comes to the lake. 

And of course, Karsten wants to be JUST like Kate.  She's too little for me to let her tube by herself, or tube with only Kate.  She and I went a few times and she will wear you out! She doesn't really get that she has to hold on, so I had the task of keeping both Karsten and myself from falling off. 

We made a quick pit stop for gas and popsicles. 

Karsten is still in the napping stage and since we were out on the boat all day long, she missed her nap, but snuck it in on Daddy's lap.

Saturday, there was a huge 4th of July festival, complete with rides, games, food, and music.  We went to check it out but it was a thousand degrees outside and I'm only slightly exaggerating. The kids had a blast. I think we sweat off about 5 lbs each. 

Then Saturday evening, we took the boat out to the middle of the lake to watch a fireworks show at a different festival/event.  I may be from a small town, but they know how to make a big deal of holidays. :)  

The fireworks really were great, but it always seems like it is pretty much impossible to get a good picture of them. Just trust me. They were good.

See all of those dots/lights in a row? Those are boats. There were a million of them. We stayed right outside of our cove so we didn't get in the middle of all of that! I may have had a panic attack if we'd tried. 

And that was just the first few days of our vacation! It was definitely off to a great start!