Tate

Once again, my family was privileged enough to be able to spend a week up at our extended family's lake house in the Georgia mountains.

Myers and Laura came down to Chattanooga on Friday and then spent the night with our Aunt Graham, who had the house for the week before us on Saturday night.  Patrick and I went to Chattanooga Friday and then went up on Sunday morning, the same time (almost exactly!) as Parks and Liz.  We had a great meal provided by Graham and got to see her family with Sarah, Will, Mom, and Grandmar.  

As in the past several years, we were blessed with really great weather.  We only had a couple foggy mornings and a little bit of rain, but were able to go swimming every day.

How big are Connor and Arthur?  Arthur was too distracted
by all the people in the room.

Connor thought his big girls cousins were cool.

Second cousins Aly and Hadley were born on the same day!

Group shot.

An attempt to get Grandmar with all of her great-grandchildren.

An actual good portrait!

Haddie and Arthur

Arthur and Sassy

Brothers jumping off the tower on Monday.

For the most part, the children all stayed in the baby pool area.  Sometimes Lily Kate and Lillian would start swimming in the middle pool, and one time Lillian jumped off the diving board.  Connor spent almost his whole time right next to the sand, ignoring everyone, and Hadley ran around being fearless.  Arthur really enjoyed the time he got to spend in the water, even sampling some of the delicious sand.

Char and Uncle Will are special friends.

Connor surprised me so much by falling asleep during dinner one night!  He stayed asleep through getting cleaned up and going up to bed.  Sweet guy was worn out!

We tried to keep the technology low, but with so many people in the house, it was kind of necessary sometimes.  Myers set up Parks' iPad so that Lily Kate and Lillian could play Minecraft on the same server and they were so happy to play together.

Every year we try to get group shots of our sweet children and then of the families, if they want them.  We haven't taken a full family picture since 2009, the last time our whole family was together.  I don't know if anyone else wants one, but I kind of don't care about it yet.

My favorite of the Parks Carpenters.

Love this picture of us!

Getting ready to eat dinner.

One day, Connor told me to "come on" after he woke up from his nap.  So I followed him, and Patrick followed us with the camera.  We went down to the field in front of the house, then down the hill to the bridge.  We had a lot of fun taking lots of pictures and here are some of the best ones.

 Connor found a large stick and had a lot of fun moving it around and we loved taking pictures of it!

Brave Hadley!

We had such a great trip.  When we were headed down the mountain, Patrick said that we were also on the downhill toward having our sweet Eamon with us!  We're really focusing on all the things we would like to do before he gets here and we're certainly excited!