Lake Weekend

The first big, friend lake weekend of the year is in the books. I believe all who attended will judge the weekend as a success.

This was a four-family, 17-person weekend, including us. The kids ranged from 13 to 8, so it’s a pretty good time. The 13-year-olds, all girls, are still capable of relaxing and having fun with the younger kids. And the youngest kids are all comfortable in and around water. The beauty of that is the kids pretty much take care of themselves. Sure, we keep an eye on them, ensure they follow rules, etc. But we also get interrupted a lot less than we used to.

It was the perfect lake weekend, weather-wise. Mid-upper 80s both days, sunny, hot. Last week was still very cool at night, though, so the water remained on the chilly side. It was warmer than two weeks ago, but it did take a few seconds to get used to.

We determined on cool water days, the best way to get acclimated is to just jump off the upper deck. I took my first plunge ever this weekend. Our guests agreed with my impression from our first view from the top deck: it looks a lot higher when you get up there. It’s not really that high. I’m guessing it’s 11–12 feet down to the water. But it feels higher once you get up there. My leap benefitted from me having to remove my glasses. I pretty much held my breath as soon as I jumped because I couldn’t gauge when I was going to break the surface. Anyway, it’s a solid drop, it’s fun, and it’s deep enough where you aren’t hitting anything other than some tall seaweed[1] after you enter the water. You do have to be careful with your limbs. You’re moving pretty quickly when you hit, and that impact can sting. One of the other dads, who jumped off a good 20 times over the two days, had big bruises on his inner biceps Sunday morning. Tuck those wings.

What else? There was a lot of tubing. One of the 13-year-olds is a real daredevil and likes to go by herself. I whipped her around more than the other kids and even dumped her on the big turn. She loved it and the other kids enjoyed watching her antics.

L did her usual fishing. Her count was down this week, only five total fish. But she also landed this beast, by far her biggest catch ever. That’s an adult’s hand next to it for comparison.

Other than that, lots of good food and conversation. The obligatory Cards Against Humanity game at about 10 pm Saturday evening for the adults. Plenty of beer, wine, margaritas, and bourbon was consumed.

The crazy thing is our summer is something like 1/3 over already. I kind of hate these shorter summer breaks. Ask me again how I feel when we hit mid-July.