A chip off the ol' block

Back when I was about 14 or 15, I got home from a school weekend-long field trip (ok, ok, it was a band trip. I just didn't want to admit it!) really late on a Saturday night. It was technically Sunday morning, because it was around 2:00 am. I went in to wake up my parents and let them know I was home. After we said our hellos, they told me to go look in the backyard. I went and looked out the back window and saw a brand new trampoline! I was so excited that I went outside and jumped on it right then and there. At 2:00 am. In the pouring rain. And then proceeded to jump on it almost every single day until I moved away to college. Not only did it get jumped on but girl talks, sleepovers, mean games that I forced my younger siblings to play in which they always lost, picnics, basketball (and any other sport that you can add jumping to), fort-building, etc all took place on that trampoline.

That trampoline is now here at our house and I think in the short year we've had it, Carter has been on it so much it seriously rivals all that time I spent on it as a teen. He loves to be out there jumping, practicing ninja moves, chatting over the fence to the neighbors, putting the sprinkler under it in his swimming trunks, eating his picnic lunch, catching bugs, watching the cars go by, etc. After I snapped these pictures from the deck, he curls up into the shape of an egg and calls up to me, "Hey mom! Wanna come crack me?". Really, how could I resist?