We Love You, Daddy!: Rope Swings and Sprinklers

Here is Natalie's new dress that she wore on Sunday (only $7.49!!)

Okay, you haven't missed too much the last couple of days. We have been busy doing...a whole lot of nothing. Yesterday Greg helped me take all the kids to swimming lessons; today Eric went with me and the kids to WalMart and Costco. It is so nice to have the extra help!

Yesterday afternoon while the kids were napping, Melinda, Greg, Eric, Bear and I all went to a pond to go off a rope swing. When we got there, the rope swing was occupied by some potty-mouthed children and their irresponsible parents, so we went in search of a bank to swim at. We found one, but it was pretty boring just sitting there in the lake.

As we were walking around the pond, we found a rope swing tangled up in a branch; Eric made it his mission to get it down. We had a rope with a hook/lath thing at either end and a retractable leash that we used for Bear. Eric spent about 45 minutes trying to get that dumb rope down.

He first tried tying a stick to the end of our rope and throwing it up at the branch. No luck. The stick wasn't really heavy enough.

Note the Stick

He then tried filling a Gatorade bottle with water, attaching that to the end of the rope, and trying to throw it up through the tangled rope swing. We had a few close tosses, but no luck.

Note the Gatorade bottle

Finally, we let out all the rope on the leash, attached it to the first rope, and tossed that. It took 3 people: 1 to toss the handle of the leash, 1 to toss the hook where the leash and the rope connected, and 1 to...well, I don't know what Melinda was doing. But we got it!!

Note the incredible display of teamwork

And so then we got the rope down, but it was too short. Greg was the only one who was tall enough to reach it. Wa-wa. So we attached the rope that belonged to us (which was actually a wire with a thin plastic sheath). We attached the two ropes together, and tied a knot in our rope to hold on to and looped the end around so that it wouldn't be so long.

Eric went off it and got his leg stuck in the loop on the way down; he now has a rope burn way up high on his inner thigh. All I have to say is, he is one lucky guy (if you know what I mean...).

Note the wire caught around his leg

So we started to go home, but then we found a great log right off the edge of the pond. We spent about 30 minutes jumping in off the log. It was actually pretty fun. We may even go back!

That same evening, we set the sprinkler up and let the girls play. Pretty exciting stuff. We love you and miss you! Here are the pictures from that evening.