Family Time

This morning we took advantage of some gorgeous weather to get away from campus as a family for a few hours by taking a 3-hour kayak trip on nearby Lake Herrington. We had a little apprehension about Ellie's reaction to sitting in a boat for an extended time -- wearing a life vest, no less -- but she did quite well and I think she will enjoy it even more next time. We didn't take a lake map with us so we didn't know exactly if we found our intended destination (the lake is 31 miles long) but it's given us reason to go back again soon.

Aunt Marcia, we're grateful for the hat you gave Ellie! It was put to good use on today's sunny day! Some of you may not know that Ellie's head circumference is in the 97th percentile for her age -- so it makes finding a hat that fits a difficult proposition.

There's not a lot of room for turning around in a kayak, so I got this shot shooting blindly, holding the camera over my shoulder.

Yes, we're still eating our meals out of 'the cup'. It makes it challenging to pack a picnic lunch for Els! Thankfully with her newly acquired skill of eating small finger foods, we could keep the kayak cupholder filled with dry cereal, though much of it ended up feeding the fishies. Later we learned this (above) was the "beach" someone at the marina told us about. (It's quite rocky, as you can see).

It didn't take her long to decide the water was worth touching...
She fit perfectly on the child jump seat in front of Nathan.

The little black blob straight above my yellow paddle is one of 3 wild goats we discovered roaming the edges of Dunn Island. From a distance they resembled nimble dogs, but on closer expection they were definitely billy goats. I wonder how long they've been there? It's not exactly an inhabited island from our observation.

a closer photo of 2 of the goats