A Slice of Jackson Life : Labor Day 2013

For the first time in 27 years (that I can remember), our church didn't have a huge Labor day picnic so we were on our own this year :-) Of course, Jimmy has a million and one holidays off so we like to use those to do something with the family for the day. I had talked to him about going to Bear Lake and having lunch, taking the kids swimming at Kruel Lake and maybe a walk around the lake. Sunday night at church, I was talking to my friend Becky, and mentioned we were thinking about Bear Lake and she said they were thinking the same thing, so we decided to just all go together.

We woke up Monday morning and it was HOT and HUMID! Heat index was 97 and it was 83% humidity :-/ We called them and we all agreed we DID NOT want to go to the lake, haha. We gave each other 15 minutes to throw around some ideas with our husbands and decided we would take all the kids to Kangarooz in Spanish Fort, Al. It is a MASSIVE building full of blow up bouncy houses, slides and obstacle courses. We all ate an early lunch (free chicken sandwich at Chick-fil-A for wearing any kind of sports attire), then were on our way! The kids had SOOO much fun and actually, we did too just seeing the excitement on their faces :-D

(most of these are blurry as they were going 100 mph, lol)

the dads hangin' out in the toddler area

haha, this is such a funny picture of Alyssa

Alyssa was trying to help Brennan up the ladder... wasn't working! :-D

sliding down with daddy

After we had spent a few hours there, we went out to Meaher State Park, which was not even 10 minutes away. They had a perfect day use spot with a huge covered picnic area and a playground for the kids. It was so nice to have them play while the guys cooked the hamburgers and hot dogs and Becky and I got the rest of the food out and set everything up. We ate dinner, YUMMY, made s'mores, YUMMY again, and then went on a walk down to the pier, where I got HUGE splinter in my big toe, and then went to the other side of the park and walked the other pier. We saw a beautiful sunset, were attacked by lots of bugs, saw lots of fish jumping out of the water and saw lots of cars driving on the bridge across the way.

the view..

getting' the grills going

looking for and killing spiders :-0

our "big" fire for s'mores

walkin' to the pier

driving over to the other boardwalk, I drove, Becky and Brennan were in the passenger side, all the kids were piled in the back seats and these two rode on the back

second boardwalk

watching the fish jump out of the water

And last but not least, our totally photo bombed pic

just in case you cant find it, Jason is right in between mine and Jimmy's face.

We left there and went on a quick trip to Bass Pro Shops. Of course the guys took off and Becky and I wondered around with the kids looking at everything. It really was a lot of fun :-)

We had such an amazing labor day filled with good friends, lots of laughter, really good food and happy children! (Well, at least until it was 10, then everyone was getting tired, lol)