Blessed Beyond Measure: Cottage Weekend Pt 1: Asher's 6th Birthday Splash Bash

On June 29th we headed to Michigan for a long pre-4th of July weekend. We left a little after lunch hoping to get there in time for dinner. Unfortunately traffic was horrendous and it took us nearly 8 hours to get there. It was a painful drive, but we did eventually make it...just in time to quickly eat some leftovers and then head to bed.

The boys were excited to sleep in their new bunkbed again. When I got up in the middle of the night, I found both of them perpendicular to their beds.

From that point on our weekend got MUCH better! We had four FULL days to enjoy at the ~~cottage~~ lake house and we did our best to enjoy them to the upmost degree...starting on Saturday morning with Asher's 6th Birthday!!!

Since birthdays are too fun for sleeping (at least for kids...sleeping is all I wanted to do on my birthday), everyone was up surprisingly early. At first, Eric and Asher were going to take the jet ski to go buy some worms for fishing but word caught on quickly as everyone woke and it turned into an impromptu early morning family boat ride.

Gramps telling the boys a story.

When we arrived at the store, we realized that our boat ride was SO early that the store had not even opened yet! Thus, we headed over to Corn Island to check out the petting zoo to kill some time.

A zebra and a zonkey? (zebra-donkey mix)

After checking out the animals, the boys enjoyed jumping into the water as the day was already hot and the temperature would continue to climb as the day went on.

Finally, it was 8:00 am and the store would be open so we left the island...but not before getting a few pics of the Official Corn Island Rescue Team. ;P

We headed over to the store, got our worms (and some birthday donuts) and then drove back to the house for more fun on the lake.

Video: Jumpin' in the Lake

The boys all like to go up to the house and run through the yard, down the dock and then jump off into the lake. Here they are doing that (or trying to). Avery wasn't quite brave enough to jump off. He would run to the end and then stop before jumping in. :)

After a little fun on the lake, Eric's sister and crew arrived to join us for the rest of the weekend...along with the newest member of the family little Walter Beau Sturza! <3 We took some time to meet and snuggle the little guy and then headed back out to the lake.

After some fun playing at the lake it was time to begin Asher's birthday party. After weeks of coming up with several different ideas for parties including Ninja Turtles, Transformers and Pokemon Asher finally decided that he wanted to have a Jet Ski party since we would be spending his birthday at the lake. Since focusing a party around a jet ski is a bit tricky I decided to expand it to a water party (Splash Bash). Thus to start the party off I surprised the kids with a summer favorite: a slip-n-slide. None of them had ever seen one before and they were all quite curious about it but also excited to check it out and give it a shot. They had a great time on it but were not overly crazy with the temperature of the water which was significantly colder than the water of the lake.

After fun on the slip-n-slide, the kids were ready to get out of the cold hose water and back into the lake. I used this time to decorate a little, finish up the cake and send Eric out to get pizza for dinner (we were going to have a dinner cruise and get pizza from the channel store but it was almost 100 degrees outside and we all decided it would be better to stay home and IN the water (and shade) rather than ON the water (and in the sun).

Decorations: I kept it VERY simple this year putting up some colorful balloons and crepe paper and then putting together a fun water-themed bucket of surprises for each of the kids.

When everything was ready, the party officially began. I got a few pictures of the kids, gave them their buckets of goodies and then we all enjoyed Eddie's Pizza (soooooo goood) for dinner on the deck!

This is Asher checking out his cake. After weeks of telling me he wanted a Jet Ski Party and a Jet Ski Cake, I was a bit surprised when he looked at the cake and then asked me why it had a jet ski on top of it!