More Fun With the Robisons

Remember last winter how I said the Robisons like to tie an inner tube to a tractor, put the children in it, and then drag them around in the snow?

Turns out, it’s not just a winter thrill. There is a summer version too: same concept, only with a boat.

Winter, spring, summer, or fall, these people like to be dragged around in an inner tube!

I am just really, really glad that none of them own an airplane.

Seriously. That’d be bad.

This started out nicely. In the picture above I was thinking, "oooh, it's like a relaxing little ride. Now why does every one come back from this so tired? And why are they making me wear a life jacket?"


In the picture above this, taken about a minute after the first picture, I was thinking "weeeeeeeeeeeeeee" and Jenna was telling me something about leaning the direction she told me to lean when she told me to do it. I was also thinking, "I grew up in California, body boarding, people, in REAL waves. I can hang on to a tube in a lake, girl, pul--eeze!"

And in this last picture of that ride I was thinking, "ahhhhhhhhhhhh, humph, ouch, did I just fly a little? Why can't I breath? So much water in the face...so much ..."


When we got back, I felt a bit like a cat does, after you put it in the washing machine for a few seconds. And then Jenna said, "well he [Ryan, who was driving the boat] took it really easy on us."

So later there were two inner tubes tied to the boat with Ryan's two sisters' husbands on one, and Ryan and me on the other. Only we were having this thing called a war and Dustin leapt off his tube and on to ours and attempted to throw us in to the water...you can vaguely see him on our backs there. And in case you wonder. He was successful.

So here is Ryan getting up to, I would like to think, avenge me, but I believe he would have done this anyway cause that is, they tell me, the point of the war. To get on the other tube and pry people from it. I didn't need pried from it though, as you can see. I am not leaping. I am holding on for dear life.

Look at him leap! He's like one of those sugar gliders, hu? I still just mostly concentrated on staying on that there inner tube.

This is Ry shortly before he got on some water skiis. He's super cute! I will pause now for a long girly sigh. Ahhhhhhhhhh............

This is Ryan no longer on the water skiis.

This is Oakley saving his life.

And this is Kix, doing what he did all day.

This is Adele thinking it's really cool to sit with her toes in the water kicking it.

This is Adele after a wave broke over us that was big enough to splash us.


My poor baby.

And this is Zoey, cheering Addey up.

I missed Elsa the whole day. It was her dad's weekend with her. But I think she would have loved it. Hopefully, she gets to go when we do it again in a few weeks.

There is a Melody, Keeps Coming Back to Me, Bouncing Round and Round it Has a Merry Sound, And Though It's Mine Today, Soon it Will Slip Away...

I am an alien.

Like, from space.

My ship crashed here in 1985 when I was a small child and my alien sister Melody and I were separated from the adult aliens at the crash site and then found and subsequently adopted by humans. Our fellow aliens are still heart broken and searching for the children they lost. Ryan just learned all of this about me.This was one of the fantasies my childhood friend Melody and I lived in together.

We were also quite frequently princesses on roller skates zooming around the kingdom disguised as regular people around the villagers, who didn’t know we were the princesses, and we crusaded against the renovation construction that threatened the little church choir room where we met and reluctantly became friends.

We were seven and just finishing second grade. My mom was the church organist and her dad sang in the choir. We sat and glared at each other for maybe two or three Thursday nights. Then we played school. She was the teacher. She was ALWAYS the teacher. And we played spy (where we snuck in to the chapel and watched the choir practice and they didn’t know we were even there! Oh yes, we were slick).

We fell in love with a set of best friend boys…Reuben Ruckman and Jonathan McGelfrish. Yes, those are real names.

By third grade we were joined at the hip. After begging, I even managed to get my mom to let me go to the same Charter school that Melody attended. This is us the summer after third grade. The summer a towel made the world go 'round.

She moved an eternity away in 5th grade…almost an hour and a half!!!! Fortunately her father commuted and lived near his job on the weekdays, so he swung by and took me home with him some weekends.

It wasn’t till after high school that we lost touch. I grew up, more or less, got married, went to school, had a baby, got a bit fatter, developed some laugh lines.

And then, not very long ago, through the magic of the Internet, Melody and I were able to talk, and show one another our lives. It’s weird when someone you knew as a child grows up and then shows back up. There is a small child out in this world that looks just like a little one of her. Same brown hair. And my little blond has the same color of hair I had when I was seven. Melody and I are Lynn and Sue (our mothers) and we created our little selves all over. Life really does go in circles. Doesn't it?

Elsa is the age we were when Melody and I met, but Melody’s little Jewel is a few years younger. So, we can’t put them together and see ourselves…a Blondie and brunette…playing together as if we were looking back in time.

But I just had my Addey and Melody tells me her next one is on the way. Our new babies will be close in age. About as close as we are actually and I can’t help but think…

What if they have giant oval heads and bug eyes like our alien parents?!?!?!?!!?!?

Happy Birthday Be Fri (in 4 days), you are 30 something. I am still just 30. I knew being a month younger would pay off someday.

*The title is in reference to a song we used to know years ago.