The 'zarks or the Ozaaks

Feeding the fish at Dawg Days

The waves at Big Surf

Grandpa's co-captain, by the end of the week Linc was sure that Grandpa couldn't do this alone!

Linc's first tubing experience

We had a great time in the 'Zarks (Sean's way of saying it) or the Ozaaks (no R - Carter's pronunciation) with the Hogan family this week. We kept awfully busy but still managed to find time to relax a bit and lounge. We boated & floated, tubed, skied & wake boarded for the big boys. Went to the water park to celebrate Marah's 8th "fake" birthday - her Ozarks birthday before the "real" one today. Carter loved "surfing" in the wave pool and Linc thought it was fun until he had a big drink of it. We fed the fish, fed the ducks - fished and then decided it was fun to throw rocks at the ducks - something about that is fun if you are in the almost 3 range, I guess.

We jet skied which ended in a near tears experience for me, as apparently I got a little crazy & threw myself off (although Sweet Samantha was able to hold on) and then coasted into the rocks as I had no idea where the safety attachment went and neither did any boaters and no Hogan's realized we were missing - until we waved Gwen down about 15 minutes later, hope Samantha didn't learn anything new from her Auntie Shanny in panic mode and those 15 minutes! I will never jet ski again without knowing how to operate the damn thing!

One of the highlights of the week in my opinion was our long boat ride to Ha Ha Tonka to swim near the spring - after a long swim to the spring from the boat (mine with a little doodle hanging on tightly to my neck) most of us climbed the wall to float back with the VERY cold spring water - Carter was the 1st to go - I wish I'd had my camera to capture his expression as he came floating with the current doing a little dog paddle -it was priceless and such a big kid thing for him to do - he can really turn on the big kid when he's around the big girl cousins. The boys had a great time playing with the cousins - they were all so good, I couldn't believe it - they must be growing up. We look forward to doing it again next year and I'm certain the boys will be talking about the trip until then!