OK, we decided to join the millions of others who have now done this. It was pretty fun to watch:

Mentos Video

“Skyline is freaking out…”

We spent some time in the Factory at Franklin this afternoon. I only got one picture, but Lauren had the great idea of going to decorate pottery, which turned out to be a lot of fun. I can’t wait until we get to pick up our creations next week:

Wow, what a day at Kings Island!! We had no lines at all in the park. Jake and I walked right onto the Beast, there were even empty cars on the ride. Then Beth came and went on it with when we rode it a second time. It was like that all throughout the park. We did more in a couple hours than we can usually do in a whole day. The water park side of things was a little more crowded, but everyone had fun there, too.

We’re in Cincinnati to visit with family and got to see Uncle “Elvis” (Dan) for his birthday. Great seeing everyone else at Grandma’s house, too:

Bethy loves her kitty. Here are some pictures of them posing together:

Poor little Sky-Sky has a new enemy — the neighbor’s cat Kiwi. Kiwi is about 4 times bigger than Skyline:

Jake and Beth had their county championship swim meet today. This year, everyone earned a heat ribbon for at least one event, so that was really cool. The great thing, though, was how well they did in their events and how close so many of their races were. Good job everyone! It was a great swim season—can’t wait for the next one to start.

Lauren’s championship swim meet for the summer was today, and she performed awesomely! She got a couple of heat ribbons and did excellent in her strokes. Here are some pictures:

(Jake and Beth go tomorrow)

It’s hard to believe just how perfect the weather was every day for us, and tonight ended with the perfect dinner on the dock followed by an amazing sunset over the bay.

The kids all went on a bungee jump this morning. It was pretty cool to watch them bouncing around and doing flips up high in the air.

We had another day of amazing weather, and decided to spend this morning exploring the bay side of the resort, including a tour of the bay by row-boat (powered, of course, by Daddy). We took the boat through the bridge, to the dock and even to the island.

We decided to spend another evening in the town in Sandestin. It was beautiful outside (yet again) and we got to eat outside (yet again).

The final adventure for the afternoon was the climbing wall. This one was pretty tough, but all three of them did very well. Everyone reached about the same level, which was very high up. Good job guys!!

You can’t do the ropes course and then not do the zip line. I stayed down on the ground and got the pictures as the kids zoomed over the lake on the zip line. It was really cool to watch them, and congratulations to Bethy for choosing to be the one to go first.

Video Clips

Beth on the Zip Line

Jake on the Zip Line

Lauren on the Zip Line

There are a bunch of “Adventure Zone” activities in the town. These are new since the last time we were here. The kids wanted to try the “ropes course.” After they were about 5 minutes into it, I realized that it looked really cool and fun, so I decided to go up there with them. Everyone in the family got up to the top platform and walked out to ring the bell:

We decided to walk a bit this morning and check out the nature trails inside the resort. We actually remembered them from the last time we were here. It was fun, but pretty hot and sunny out there.

We got to see a great fireworks display up close in Baytowne. I didn’t take any pictures of the fireworks themselves (we were too busy watching them), but we had a great evening in the town.

The kids finally talked me into taking them parasailing. If you’re thinking about doing it, you definitely should give it a shot. Today was the perfect day for it. They let all four of us go up at the same time. We had an awesome ride, and we saw some really cool stuff while we were up there (including a sea turtle swimming in the Gulf). It was a great way to celebrate the Fourth of July.