Our Growing Family: Table Rock Lake Vacation

A while back we decided to book a vacation with our great friends, the Pickert's. We spend a lot of time with this family. Justin is one of Jarod's old college roommates. Both families ended up in St. Louis and we both have little girls. We love this family so much and it's so neat to have kids around the same age. (Although poor Luke will be the only boy...) We decided to try out the Branson area and ended up renting a condo on Table Rock Lake. (Which in my opinion is such a better choice than "icky" Lake of the Ozarks).
The girls seemed to have a blast playing together. I think Melanie was in heaven playing with Macie and I think that she really loves Whitney. We spent the week, swimming, boating, and tubing. We also made a trip to Silver Dollar City and of course the "Big Girls" wanted to hit the outlet mall. The boys tried fishing, with not much luck. When the kids were down for the night, the adults had fun drinking and playing games. It was a great time! We had so much fun we decided it might have to be an annual event.
The only little hiccup that we had, because every trip seems to have at least one, is that Jarod lost his wedding band while tubing. It's not surprising as I was sure one of the boys were going to break their necks tubing. They didn't exactly "take it easy" on each other. To be honest, they didn't really take it easy on Jess as well. I didn't partake as I am hugely pregnant. Anyway, accidents happen. So it's not the end of the world. But it is sad, since that is the ring I put on his finger on our wedding day. We checked and we only insured my ring. So looks like we will be purchasing a new wedding band in the near future. Oh well...

And now for a TON of pictures!

Melanie was a little clingy in the water. I think our trip the weekend before to Hurricane Harbor put a little fear in her. The noise, spraying water, and crowds scared her a bit.

I'm just going to embrace the whole pregnant and in a bathing suit thing....

This picture cracks Jarod and I up. Melanie is normally a little shy around Justin and men in general. However, by the second day she was infatuated with him. She was constantly staring at him and smiling. It was pretty funny.

She loved these balls. I think it was her favorite part of Silver Dollar City.

Melanie's first carousel ride. She loved it!

I had a life jacket for Melanie. However, she cried the entire time I had it on her. She looked like the kid from "A Christmas Story" when he was all bundled up by his mom. She couldn't move her neck or walk. I decided to not make the entire 4 hours we had the boat both days miserable for her. I'm going to have to find something a little better next time.

Both little girls seemed to be put to sleep almost immediately on the boat.

Whitney made Melanie giggle A LOT!

I promise I was VERY careful holding her in the Lake. Luckily I feel like a very strong swimmer and felt very confident I could handle her in the water.