Day Three: Tahoe Trip

We took the whole family for a mini-hike this morning. Eli slept in until 715 this morning (he has proven to be a very early riser on vacation, unlike his usual late-sleeper status), so we waited on Maddie to wake up before we could head out. We packed a few snacks, the hiking backpack for Mad Dog and we were gone. Eli recognizes that Grandpa Jim and Uncle J will happily carry him if he asks, so he's reverted back to his younger days, requesting to be held a lot, even when we were hiking. No worries, as we only went 2-3 miles total. Maddux fell asleep during the last 15 minutes or so, which isn't surprising given the rhythmic bounce she no-doubt felt in her carrier. Eli had a blast at our resting spot, throwing the ball with everyone. That kid can play baseball anywhere!

On the way home we stopped by a park and let Eli run around on the soccer fields. A quick lunch later and both kids were down for a nap. During that time, the adults filled up 50 or so water balloons so that we could have Eli's first water balloon fight on the back deck when he woke up. We did not expect that Eli would be the first ever water balloon-rights-advocate. He loved the balloons, but he did NOT like when they popped. He cried and said, "No break!" After ten minutes or so he finally enjoyed throwing them against the tree to break them, but it took some coaxing. By the time Maddux woke up from her nap, all balloons were popped and the tree was soaking wet. Eli did get into the squirt guns though (we called them 'squirters'). I'm personally not a fan of g.u.n.s, but I realize that there is no way to eliminate them from Eli's life completely. So we just omitted the g-word from our description of them, and tried to get him to not squirt in people's faces. Good times....