July 18th and 19th

Wednesday dawned humid, but cool making it feel chilly  but sweaty as soon as you started to move.  Got in morning run, yoga and swim.  After breakfast the kids played outside a bit and went for a walk with my dad.  It sprinkled on and off.  Alex went down the hill to play with the other kids for a while.  He came home feeling a bit sad because he was the youngest he can't/doesn't want to do all the things the older kids do.  I had told both kids that at some point this week I would take each of them on a "date" to do something special one on one.  This seemed like a good opportunity to take Alex on his.
He chose mini golf at Settler's Mill and go carts.  We had a really great time.  The rain held off and we got all 18 holes of golf in and a spin around on the go carts.  I got terribly motion sick on the go carts and had to limit it to one ride even though I had originally agreed to two.  We went into town and got some lemon ice from the ice cream shop and eventually made our way back to the cabin.
We ate dinner, played some games and then went down to the neighbor's house for a little birthday party for one of the other kids.  We had cake and played some games, all the kids watched a movie.

Thursday morning everyone slept in really late.  Really late!  After a big breakfast Maya and I decided it was a good time to have our date.  Because she wants everything Alex wants right now she also wanted to go mini golfing (but no go carts, she was not interested thank goodness).  She did a great job and we had tons of fun.  She even got a hole in one!  We got a slushy and she wanted to spend some coins she had in her purse so we went to the bead store in town (I was trying to think of something that she could buy with coins that wasn't junky and she could actually do/make something with) and she picked out a few pretty beads.

We spent some time coloring and drawing and later on got our suits on to go down swimming.  Alex had gone swimming with dad while we were gone and wanted to show us how he could go off the end of the dock himself and then swim back in.  He had jumped off the first time but didn't really like the feeling of going  down under water that far yet so he liked lowering himself off more slowly better.  I think he felt more in control.

Alex, Maya and I took the canoe out and paddled the side of the lake over by the Pines.  We got to see one of the loons pretty close up, Alex tried to take some pictures but it's hard with the bobbing of the boat.  The evening was gorgeous!