The Ropelato Family

~September Ropelato Birthday Party~

We thought it would be fun to have a boating party this year for the September birthdays. We all met over at Pineview to play on the beach, enjoy a yummy dinner, and go tubing and water skiing. Lexi was more than thrilled to start her birthday celebrations.

The cousins had a blast tubing!

Hunter even got up skiing!!!! Yay!!!

The Birthday Girls: Jocelyn, Darinda, and Lexi.

After an evening of boating and playing on the beach, we headed back over to Jerry and Darinda's for donuts and to open presents. It was a fun evening!

~Smeding Reunion~

We love spending time with the Smeding family up at South Fork over Labor Day weekend. We always play lots of fun games that the kids look forward to.

The kids had fun playing in the river, even though the water was freezing cold.

The guys played football and ultimate Frisbee for hours.

Camping isn't camping without getting super dirty. These three knew that rule, lol.

Getting ready to break the piñata!

Rushing in for the candy.

We ended the night with a glow stick dance party. The is Lexi and Garrett. It was fun to watch all the little glow stick bodies dancing around.

Mckell was the figure with the glasses. Pat and Dave have the funnest ideas!!!

All the kids together. It was fun to see what everyone came up with. It really is a fun family reunion!

~Are You Ready for Some Football~

Hunter had fun playing football with this group of boys.

It has been fun watching Hunter play. He loves playing sports!

~Family's New Toy~

We did it. We got a boat! Dave and I have been talking for some time about how it's a shame our kids do not know how to water ski and about how we both knew how to do that at their age. We decided that it would be fun for our family if we broke down and got a boat. while the kids still like to do things with us, lol.

Dave LOVES it, and pretty much wants to go boating every day. Me on the other hand, I get anxiety every time we go. I enjoy being out on the water, but launching the boat and bringing it back in gives me so much stress!!! I remember, as a child, my parents fighting while doing this. It is so nerve-racking. I would LOVE going out boating, if I had someone there to help Dave do this part of the trip, lol. But it is getting easier.

Garrett calls the boat "The Pirate Ship". He has officially deemed himself the flag holder.

Garrett is my fraidy cat. He doesn't like to do anything adventurous or scary, which has been a good thing (cause I don't have to worry about him getting into things he shouldn't) but at the same time not a good thing because he never wants to try anything knew. Dave and I are mean parents and we force him to go out and try things. Like going down slides at the park, getting in the swimming pool, going on rides at amusement parks, etc. Boating is no different. He loves riding on the boat, but not so much getting on the tube. In fact, he didn't want to do it at all, lol. Being the mean parents that we are, we made him. He cried at first, but then started having fun and being brave.