Wednesday, August 31, 2016

"Oh, Go Jump In a Lake!"




And this little girl did,

over and over again with her big brother....so much so that I started calling her, the mermaid, and him, the fish. 

We all know, some occasions in life just do not happen often enough! One being having all of the family...or a large percentage of... under the same roof for an extended length of time.  Well, thanks to Airbnb, we did pull off some family time in July.  And it was epic.... epic in the sense that we spent 95% of the time in one spot, the cars not leaving the driveway, and it was one of the best times ever!

We had three criteria for our time this year....1) find a house on a lake. 2) make sure it was within reasonable driving distance and 3) the main one! - make sure it was a lake with NO ALLIGATORS!

And Christa Jean pulled it off; she found the perfect spot....



therefore, earning the right to claim the master bedroom.  (Christa, given your track record, you may be the designated "finder" all the time!)



There were a few things I learned (or were reaffirmed) during that week....

~I have a tattoo dedicated to me!


~This teenager, along with her friend,
were very, very content with "down" time,
communing with nature and family, and being content
with the "quietness" of life.
(I use quietness loosely here, as indicated by the last pic!)

~This boy is a natural kayaker!...


~These sisters will be forever friends...

~These kids love their uncles...

...and aunts...


...and cousin!...
....and me..lol!


Now, for the 5% of time that we left the lake.... a few runs to the local stores in particular to pick up "swimmies" for everyone to make our lake basketball games easier to navigate....we were getting tired of almost drowning in our quests to shoot a basket...
before swimmies...
^^^notice the submerged player^^^

You can see why these...
...became a necessity!

(someone's yelling "jump"...how the heck do you jump in 10'+ of water!!)



The other short jaunt away from the pond, as Livi and Lucas called it, was to Clemson just a hop, skip and a jump away.  Because we're all suckers for college football stadiums,

and so that Christa could "gator-chomp" around campus...


Lake Hartwell,
...you did our hearts well!

and I look forward to

walking your paths


again!