Thunder Island

This is becoming a new family tradition for us - and I like it. A waterpark big enough for all of us to have fun but where even David and Rebekah can ride most of the rides, and small enough that we don't spend the day waiting in line. Here's a barage of pictures - oh, and after you go to the waterpark they have a fun little mini-golf course (where its easier to carry a camera so where most of the pics are taken). It was so fun this year to go between Melanie and James' birthdays and to take Aunt Kelsey with us.

Waterskiing tricks and fun

I thought I'd just make one post for summer and post a slide show or something and get caught up, but as I reviewed our photos I realized there's so much more to document that I'd be keeping a better family journal if I made a bunch of shorter more specific posts, so hopefully and I can do these quickly and get caught up.

Along with regular waterskiing we, of course - being members of the Frazee family, had to do some out of the ordinary stuff too. Here's some photos of our fun! This isn't anything too exciting - but really how many people can we fit on a boat! (They did this on purpose-for surfing-and I'll document that later- the more weight on the boat makes a better wake for surfing-or so I understand)

Kaleigh and Melissa - cousins forever! Just hanging out havin' fun.

If you can't tell that's a picnic table they're skiing. I tried it too and it was really fun!! We did that for the lake's Trick Day.

Here's another trick for Trick Day. They were working on getting another person (actually Melissa) on top, but didn't get that to work this year - maybe next!

Just some fun tubing. I like this picture because I caught it just before James fell off!

So I said Melanie doesn't love waterskiing before - well she loves tubing!

Uncle Pat was crazy enough to let the girls drive his boat. They of course were in complete Heaven!!

Summer Waterskiing

We had a WONDERFUL Summer! Waterskiing was our main mode of enjoyment. At the end of last Summer we bought an old motorboat, nothing to great to look at, but it works and we sure spent a lot of time on it this Summer. Here's Melissa at the beginning of Summer, just getting confident in getting up and skiing. She turned into a waterskiing diva! She got confident on two skis and started dropping a ski (pictured below), then she got good at slalom skiing and started trying to get up on one ski and has now mastered that as well.

James learned to ski this summer. His enthusiam is biggest when its not his turn. He's a little hesitant to go, but if you can get him in the water he's getting pretty good. Hopefully next Summer he'll build up his confidence and learn to enjoy it.

Melanie improved this summer too, but waterskiing is not her favorite thing. She is still working on dropping a ski but gained some confidence in going in and out of the wake.

I think Eric and I may have had more fun than the kids. It was really fun for us to enjoy skiing so much as well. It's been a long time and we both improved our skills a lot. I learned to slalom and we both can get up on one ski now. Yay us!!

Time in Texas

I had the great priviledge of going to my sisters this summer for a whole two weeks. Unfortunately it was to help her recover from open heart surgery. She was amazing and the Lord truly blessed her to have a successful surgery and a great recovery. He blessed me in making it possible for me to go and help her. My wonderful sister-in-law Kelsey, who had just graduated from HS happened to be coming up here to visit for the summer and was so kind to watch 4 of our 5 kids for 2 weeks so I could go. I hope I was helpful to Angie, but I mostly had a great time with her and her family. I took Rebekah with me because she was too young to leave for that long plus Angie's youngest is just older than Rebekah and I thought it would be fun for them to play. So we found out for sure that even on a cloudy day - and I mean totally overcast, you (or in this case our little girls) can get a sunburn. Poor little lobsters.
Swinging in the backyard. The Texas heat makes it hard to want to go outdoors, but we managed to spend a little time playing in the backyard.
The only one here who actually used a pacifier at the time was Rebekah, but Julie was a big tease and liked to snatch it from her and so we found some extras for fun and then even Anna wanted one. She said "It makes your mouth look pretty". So funny!
Angie was supposed to do some walking everyday as part of her recovery routine so we decided to kill two birds with one stone and do our walking at the outlet mall ;) The girls thought the most fun part was riding in these little toy rides outside - actually we only put money in one and Julie hated it. In Texas it gets HOT so everyday we tried to include somekind of water activity and some Sonic drinks (especially since we don't have Sonic up here in NY and I needed to get my fill, hehe). Just got out of the pool, Rebekah and Julie getting some snacks and getting cheesy with the camera. One of my favorite memories is of a girls night out my mom planned for us. Her and my Dad were able to come down for the weekend and my mom got us tickets to see Wicked. I had no idea what it was about, but heard it was good. I just loved it and recommend it to anyone. It was so fun to have that time with my mom and my sister. Thanks Dad and Kevin for watching the little girls so we could do this!!Grandma with her granddaughters. So fun for her, so fun for them!Angie feeding our "little birds". She looks way to good to have just had open heart surgery, huh?She's amazing! (and okay, modern medicine is amazing too)So cute! What a precious time for Angie and I as sisters and for our little girls as cousins. Hopefully as they get older we'll find ways to get together so they can really get to know each other and be friends! Thanks Angie - we had soooo much fun, and I'm so glad you're okay!

Another School Year Ended

(Yes, I know schools been out for a while now, but I'm catching up, remember?)

With the end of the school year came the end of another season of softball and t-ball. Melanie, Melissa and James each did a great job on their teams and each had a great time. I slacked at taking photos this year because it was all we could do to get all three to the appropriate game at the appropriate time and place - sometimes we had 3 children in 3 different games at one time! What will we do when they're all old enough to play?

James hammed it up for me a little after their last game when they each got a medal and their own ball. He thought that was pretty cool.

Next cam Fun Day where all the Elementary kids get to spend the day outside playing games, doing relay races, and getting yummy treats like snow cones, cotton candy and popcorn. David and Rebekah were pretty glad to get to come and watch and get some treats as well.

Last was Melanie's graduation from Elementary school. Yes, she's now moving up to the Middle School/High School. Oh, my goodness, how'd she get so old! Sadly I wasn't able to be there for that because I was in Texas (details in another post -coming soon - hopefully) but thankfully Aunt Kelsey was able to be there and support Melanie and take this great picture with ever supportive little bro. David. Congrats Melanie!

Vacation to Florida

Okay, so once again Summer has come and I have gotten way behind in my postings. It started with what I call our "Family Event Vacation". We went to Florida for Eric's sister Kelsey's graduation and also had Melissa's baptism so she could have both her grandparents there. Lucky for us Eric's parents live in Florida so it also doubled as a wonderful family vacation in a beautiful place. We got there and left just before the oil arrived so the beaches were beautiful! We drove this time - which seems crazy with 5 children, but then again so does flying. Ha!

It really was a fabulous time for all of us! We spent some great days at the beach, did some intercoastal sailing along with having our annual water balloon war, had a wonderful crawfish boil and altogether had a very fun and very relaxing family vacation. Thanks so much Donna and Rich - once again you totally spoiled us and we loved every minute of it! Thanks Mom and Dad and Angie and Kevin for driving so far to meet us and share this great time with us! - and I can't forget Kelsey and Ryan because you are both so great with our kids - they just love you!!

So here's a couple of slide shows since we -of course- took a million pics and I couldn't just choose a handful to show here.