Paddleboating...

Our biggest headline for the past ten days:

Kelly came to visit!

We hardly gave her a chance to put her suitcase in her room before dragging her back to Green Lake.

When I was there with the kids, I noticed paddleboats, kayaks and canoes available to rent for next to nothing.

A no-brainer, in my book.

 I was a little nervous about how the babies would do with the life vests.

Luckily both kids found them hilarious.

Really, James threw his head back, pounded his chest and laughed maniacally.

We told Lola it was a princess vest, so she of course she was cool.

 Here's the thing about paddleboats:

they are a LOT of work, especially when you're trying to prevent a wiggly one-year-old from doing a swan dive into the water.

Add those stinky vests, and you're sweating bullets within three minutes.

At least I was.

But they're also entirely fun, and totally worth the burning calves.

Lola loved being out on the water.

She also loved barking out instructions --

"Turn that way!"

"Go faster!"

"Find the whales!"

James was a stinker.

The only thing that made him happy was when we ceded full control of the steering mechanism.

The most magical part of our voyage onto Green Lake was the mama duck who decided to introduce us to her baby ducklings.

They challenged us to a race and left us in their dust.

James called it quits about halfway through our hour, so I took the kids to the playground while Reece and Kelly burned 3,000 calories hauling that thing around the lake.

I've said it a million times, I'll say it a million and three more --

I think my heart will break when we leave the land of water at the end of the summer.

Crazy fun afternoon.