Pole Family Vacation

Every summer we do a special family trip together, but this year we decided to keep it simple and hit the Aquatic Royale. Our 5 star accomodations consisted of tents in Reed's backyard, and yes, I plan on sending a negative "How was your stay survey." Not that I really slept in the tent when my comfy king bed was only several feet away, but Steven brought Brooks in at 2am and said he'd been crying all night. Well no crap. I'd be cryin' too if I was 4, sleeping on the hard earth, my tent door didn't zip an inch and the wind was blowing my only shelter to Timbuktu. Come to think of it, I'd cry at 35 which is precisely why I chose brown brick instead of damaged blue canvas.
The night before Emma said, "Mom, I'm gonna face my fear and go on that straight and high slide." I gave her her the thumbs up with a sincere, "You go girl!" So she faced it head on and then we couldn't get her off it. She slid and slid and slid. Best part was that she didn't ask me to slide with her this year. I was going to give them my I'm-not-going-to-slide-this-year lecture and I didn't even have to. Thats what a large set of cousins will do for ya. Thank you inlaws.
T and Grandpa got to chill under the umbrella. We are loving the new hat that Reed lives in lately. It just doesn't fit him so every time we see him in it we can't help but laugh. He's the ballcap kind of guy but he's informed us that the ol' cap doesn't cover as much area as a senior needs, so he's progressed to the tourist lid.

Apparently, it doesn't matter if you're 6 or almost 36, OR if your brother's just recovering from a straining round of chemo, the towel whip game never goes off limits. It was a competition, as usual, as to who's whip would hurt the most.

Neither admitted to pain so I guess we'll never know. These are the customary traditions we hold blue and true to our heart.Of course, Brooks also carried on his own tradition by tramatizing several body parts. I didn't take a picture of his right big toe that no longer has an epithelial layer because I didn't think of it until now, but the upper lip was reinjured. The gum tissue underneath was also severly severed with this bout. I'm no longer questioning if this will be a scar, I'm just curious as to how red or raised it will be. I've given up my fight against fate - he will have scads of scars no matter what I do.
So I told the others that I was going to start taking more pictures of the cousins together since I went through my Grandma's old photos and saw how many she had of my cousins and I. What's posted is what I took. No pizza, no campout, no coyote search (Steven was the coyote), nothing more. I'm a loser but at least I have a blog right?