Family Weekend at the Lake

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Growing up, most of my memories of the summer are of our family's place at the lake. I spent most weekends and sometimes even weeks at a time there. We would swim, ski, fish, work the lines and jugs with Pap-aw in hopes of catching a lot of catfish so that Mam-aw would fry it up for dinner! And at night we would play games like Sequence, "Chicken Foot" dominoes, Uno and Phase 10. I have so many wonderful memories of that place. Then as all of us grandkids got older, the time that we spent there dwindled and then eventually stopped. Not because we didn't want to go, but just because we got busy. Then recently my grandparents contemplaced selling it just so they didn't have to continue maintaining it and keeping it up. It became more of a job for them just because no one really used it that much. My brother Scott and I decided there was no way we were letting them do that! We wanted the lake place so that we could have the same memories with our kids in the summers ahead that we had growing up. This 4th of July weekend was the first weekend we've spent at the lake as a family in YEARS. It was so much fun! Carson, Avery, Tate and Smith had a blast!! We know that it was just the first weekend of many, many to come. I love that we have a place to get away and relax...whether we even get in the water or not! I look forward to the kids getting older and teaching them to water-ski. I remember learning myself when I was 6 or 7 with these little red dolphin skis tied together on the ends! Until then, we'll just enjoy the "swimming hole"! (When I called it that to Jeff, he said, "What are you guys? The Clampetts?" Ha Ha! Of course, the Californian would say that!)

With my Honey in Hawaii!

Jeff and I were so fortunate to get to go to Hawaii for 9 days! Jeff's parents wanted to take both kids out to CA for a few weeks, so I told Jeff that we had to go on vaca for at least part of that time! It would be too hard to be home for 2 weeks without the kids around:) Luckily I have a husband who loves to travel, so it wasn't too hard to convince him. We stayed at the Sheraton Waikiki and even got upgraded to a suite room. The place was amazing. The pool was awesome and the beach was great too. We had such a fabulous time. We actually spent most of our time either eating great food or drinking cocktails by the pool! That's what I call a vacation! We took a "Hole in the Wall" Hawaiian food tour where they took us around to some of the local food joints. We got to taste original Hawaiian cuisine and eat like the locals eat. Of course, being the "foodies" that we are...that was one of our favorite things. The only real "touristy" thing we did was visit Pearl Harbor one afternoon and it was so worth it. We definitely spent the week relaxing and enjoying each other.