Best Big Brother Ever

Alternatively titled: The Patience Of A Saint

Sam loves teasing Jack, and Jack is so patient with Sam's teasing!  He sits there and lets Sam mess with him and  just waits patiently until Sam tires of it.  I love hearing them giggle together :) 

 

Day Four of Summer Vacation, 2011

You can find Part One here...
Part Two can be found here...
and Part Three can be found here.

When I posted about day three I forgot about another disaster!  I was trying to catch the dock while Dave drove the boat in, and he was going so fast that I ended up with a bruise the size of a volleyball just below my knee!  It hurt and started changing colors immediately... some skin even came off!  It looked worse every day and was a constant reminder of the disasters that found us each day!  Of course, it really could have been much worse... at least I could still walk (and wakeboard) on it!

Day four started off on a great note!  Sam got up and immediately started searching for papa... he is such a papa's boy!  It was so cute hearing him walk around the hotel suite calling "Papa, where are you?" and asking me "Where papa go?" And when my dad came back from his morning run, Sam was thrilled to get to spend some quality time with one of his favorite people!

And of course, he had some snuggles for grandma, too!

On day three we had taken time to explore the lake and we were pleasantly surprised by this view of the Hoover Dam:

I was especially excited, both because I had never seen the dam from that angle before, but also because I knew that Dave had never seen the dam at all before!  I had already been considering spending a day sightseeing, but the view of the dam from the lake sealed it for me: we were going to spend day four of our vacation being tourists!  So we packed our lunches, made sure to grab extra water, and piled in the truck to get a different view of the Hoover Dam!  Jack did great walking on those stairs, Sam sat patiently and waited as we carried his chariot up and down, we made sure to stay hydrated, and had a great time checking out the view!  

 

 

 

After our visit to the dam we found a park on our GPS and headed for it!  The park was call Big Horn Park (or something like that) and when we pulled up we immediately found out why!  

 

It was kind of gross, because there was a lot of sheep poop all over the cute little playground, but it was so fun to get to watch all the sheep come down and play while we ate!  

 

The funniest sight ever was when I turned around to see my dad bent over at the waist reading a plaque that was in the ground with the biggest sheep behind him with his head aimed directly at my dad's derriere!  I would have gotten a picture if I wasn't so afraid that the sheep was actually about to headbutt his butt!

After lunch we headed into Henderson and found our way to the Ethel M chocolate factory!  I never forgot visiting there when I was a kid and I thought Jack would love it too.  He was pretty fascinated by the assembly line, which was no surprise to me since he always wants to watch the people packing meat through the window at Costco!  Of course, his favorite part, and Sam's too, was the piece of free chocolate at the end of the tour!

Jack was such a crack up at the chocolate factory!  He was so entertaining that the store manager was laughing at him and told him that if it was okay with his mom she would give him another piece of chocolate!  He thought that was awesome and as she was walking to the back of the store to get the candy he yelled after her "It can't have nuts in it! I'm allergic to nuts!" I saw her shoulders shaking with laughter as she grabbed the candy and as she came back and handed it to him he said again "Does it have nuts in it? I am allergic to nuts!" She assured him that it didn't have any nuts and then she asked me if it was okay if she gave him two pieces!  He totally charmed the chocolate out of that lady!

After seeing the prices in that store and remembering that there was a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory (my favorite!) in the village where we were staying, we decided not to buy any candy from there. Instead, we made our way outside and enjoyed a nice walk through the cactus garden.

 

 

(I scored this one off my mom's camera!)

When we were done at the chocolate factory/cactus garden we hopped back in the car to get back to the hotel in time to make dinner.  Sam took the opportunity to take a nap...

... and after dinner we all took the opportunity to get a treat at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate factory!

And of course, we ended the day with a walk through the village, again!  We loved that village!

 

 

This little stinker... Dave and I told him to be careful not to fall in the fountain if he was going to walk around it.  If you know Jack, you know that he is, um, not the most coordinated kid in the world.  And by "not the most coordinated", I mean he's pretty much the least coordinated.  As in, he manages to walk into walls when he's standing still, and has quite often been known to answer "What did you trip over?!" with "The floor!"

So, of course I had my camera ready when Jack tried to step down this...

... because I knew it would lead to a picture like this!

He laughed and said "Good thing my daddy was there to catch me!"  Such a silly kid!  At least he knows how to laugh at himself, though.  I love that he is able to see the humor in his klutziness! 

Oh, and by the way, this was by far my favorite day of vacation ;) 

 

Our 2011 Summer Vacation- Part Three

You can find Part One here...
and Part Two can be found here.

We were so anxious to get on the lake bright and early since the first two days of vacation were not quite what we had planned.  I made lunches the night before, and got everything ready so that all we had to do was get the boys dressed and breakfasted before throwing them in the car and getting the boat on the lake.  And this time I didn't forget my camera!

Cutest flagger ever ;) 

The disaster of Day three was simply that the clasp on the tie of my wakeboard bindings broke on my last run of the day.  And that poor Sam was pretty miserable in his lifejacket most of the time.

Dave doesn't want me to post pictures of him on my blog any more (not like I have very many pictures of him to begin with though, right?), so I can't post some of the best ones.  However, my dad insisted that I needed to post these on my blog!  He had a great run on the water-ski... not bad for an old man, huh?

Since we had tried out a new boat ramp that day we had a hard time finding a good spot to beach the boat.  Instead we ended up staying on the boat all day... I felt bad for poor Sam, who didn't get a break from his life jacket, but he ended up sucking it up and dealing with it.  It helped, of course, that grandma was there to distract him!

 

After lunch we finally gave in to Jack's pleas of "Can I go on the tube now?!" and we gave grandpa and him a ride!  He was having so much fun, and of course kept wanting to go faster!

It was so funny... the wind had really picked up by then, and it was blowing the wake all over the tubers!  Jack was laughing so hard!!!

His smile was plastered to his face when it was time to come in... my little daredevil is so brave!

Since the wind had picked up and poor Sam had been in his life jacket all day, we packed the boat up and made our way back to the hotel.  Jack wasn't done playing, though, so as soon as we got back up to the room we left Dave up there to make dinner and the rest of us headed back down...

... to the pool!

 

After swimming we went back up to the room for dinner, and then we all went for a walk around the village.   We had so much fun exploring!  It was such a great little village!!!

 

 

To be continued...