august: FAGNGPFAE

Fun fact: I've never "spent the day at the lake" 🚤🛶🏊🏼‍♀️🎣🍉 before (water freaks me out- add it to the list 😳) so this Saturday in August was my maiden voyage (get it? 😂) for the First Annual Girls Night Group Plus Families Adventure Extravaganza and it was pretttty epic - definitely worth, say, driving six hours for 😉.

 

There's a lot of friendship overlap within our girls night group - at one point we were all in the same ward, there's a set of sisters in the group, we watch each other's kids frequently, before she moved Nicole cut 80% of the hair of the various husbands and children, two couples have been known to coordinate Anniversary Inn getaways BUT THAT'S NEITHER HERE NOR THERE, buuuut we decided all seven families needed to get together for some bonding: and thus, our lake day idea was born!

And ohhhh man it was fun. We borrowed a couple kayaks and a raft, rented a few paddle boards, and claimed a spot on Lake Lowell for the day:

Lunch was bring your own meat (I think Brandon and Nycole showed us all how that was done...) and potluck sides. Lake day was also our first introduction to Cooper the Puppy! 

I'm not sure if our abs got more exercise from balancing on the paddle boards or laughing at everyone else balancing on the paddle boards... seriously so fun.

 As a group we rented four @riseboards and they were never not in use- my favorite was Will and Ella continually voyaging out for parts unknown ⚓️🗺🙄😂. Plus the paddle boards are inflatable (again, I wouldn't call myself a vital resource in pumping them up but these guns 💪🏼💪🏼aren't just for show 😎) so all four of them easily fit in the back of a car 🙌🏼 (which saved truck space for the grill, tables, kayaks, etc). 

I know it looks like I just stood by and took pictures while K attacked Brandon, but I feel like I yelled something caring like, "Just be mindful of his new lungs!!" so I think that counts... 

At one point some of the landlubbing husbands played a bit of... bocce ball? Right? Clyde was the Izatt family representative, cute boy ;).  

First time in a kayak... not gonna lie, I felt claustrophobic. Weird, right? I just felt like if I tipped over I'd have a prettttty rough time getting out. So I went out a bit and came right back and switched back to a paddle board haha.

Don't worry, I tipped the paddle board a few times ;). But I loved it! 

Clyde successfully standing up on it is probably my favorite picture of the day:

At about dinnertime we changed course and switched over to the inside portion of the day - which unfortunately meant it was time to say goodbye to Nicole and Duke and their crew (who, by the way, DROVE UP FROM UTAH TO BE HERE FOR THIS BECAUSE THEY'RE HARDCORE AND AWESOME). We didn't get a full picture of all seven of us, so here's our mix and match pictures. Have I mentioned how vital these girls are to my sanity? Because they are. 

Kara and Robbie grabbed a bounce house, Paulina and Brad made a pizza run, and the kids all got their second wind and went bonkers, which made the group picture realllllly fun haha:

Instagram caption: The current total is 27 kids (all 10 and younger; Clyde is the oldest 😱) amongst the seven of us (sometimes we tell the 21yo old Shari's waitress that to freak her out 😆) -- here are twenty-two of them (not pictured: four cute Daniels kiddos and one cute Kirkendall angel boy). I loved watching them all interact and catching up with some of my little buddies AND the real news is that I can tell two of Melinda's adorable blonde girls apart now! .... as long as I'm close enough to examine their respective freckles 🕵🏻‍♀️😂

While the children bounced and ran and screeched, the remaining six couples holed up on the other side of the gym and played an adapted Newlyweds Game and laughed until we cried:

 Factoring in that none of us have technically been 'newlyweds' for at least a decade, I'd say we fared pretty well at the game haha. I think the main takeaway was: there's no excuse for getting home from work late, gentlemen. And a candy bar from the gas station isn't going to smooth things over ;).

It became obvious that the guys haven't had five plus years of monthly pictures to practice lining up hahahahaha:

One more instagram caption: The seven guys (one missed the pictures; I'm sure he's way bummed 😉) who comprise the Husbands of our Girls Night Group are crazily supportive of us and our time away and I'm so grateful for that. It was way fun to see them all together and get to know each other better... my only worry is that they'll start asking for their own annual retreat 😬😳🕹⛺️🏍🚲🎮🔫🎰🎣🍕🍔🥓🙆🏻😂