What's round on the ends and "hi" in the middle?

Ohio!
Hahaha. I can actually remember that from a Laffy Taffy wrapper in elementary school.
Anyway...my mother-in-law invited me to come down for a visit with the kids for a few days. She also encouraged me to bring along a friend, preferably childless, and so my friend, Mandy, joined us. Mandy is 6 months pregnant with her first baby and has had a heck of a year with work and whatnot.
We had a great time and I thought I would share some of the highlights/pictures from our fun trip.

Tim's parents live on a lake in Ohio. There is a small beach open to the residents of the community and on this beach there is a slide. The wetter you and the slide are, the faster you go. I wasn't sure how Noah would react to this, but he quickly climbed up it, prepared for takeoff, and...

...LOVED it! He went down it so many times. My mother-in-law and I both went down it a couple times as well.

Ellie played on the "sand" (which feels more like gravel) while Mandy supervised to make sure she didn't eat any "sand" or cigarette butts.

Noah steered the pontoon boat home from the beach while Grandma Joycie finished her lunch. You can tell he takes his job very seriously.

Ellie, on the other hand, had admitted defeat to the lifejacket she tried so hard to take off and was almost on her way to la-la-land.

My big project for the weekend was to make a quilt for Mandy's baby. She loves the quilt that my mother-in-law made for Noah when he was born and so I told her that, if she wanted, I would make her one for a gift. Thankfully, we picked up all the fabric before leaving and I brought my sewing maching and things down with us. As a team, we worked on the quilt anytime the kids were asleep. Joyce was the "cutter", I was the "sewer" and Mandy was the "ironer."Since the weather was, actually, the weather was crazy while we were down there, but we still braved the varying elements to work on the screened porch and enjoy what we could of the outside.

On Friday, the kids woke from their naps right as a thunderstorm was coming in. We snuggled up to watch it together on the porch.

The kids liked these little stirrers. They were plastic (yea! not breakable!) and had pink flamingoes on them.

Eleanor loved this little rocking chair. She thought she was the coolest thing. This was moments before the accident. "What accident?" you ask...

Just the one where she was sitting on a bottom step and, while trying to turn herself around to climb down it, lost her balance and hit the wall with her eye. Her first black eye and it looks much worse than what the picture shows. My poor baby...

Noah also was put in charge of steering the lawnmower (after the lawn was mowed and blade was NOT down anymore) with Papa.

Joyce showing Mandy how to press the binding into place. Mandy loves the way it turned out - yea! It was so fun to make and now I have a little more confidence for the next time I make one.