Throwing my fears into the lake. Along with my children.

My sister Jo, is good friends with a couple named Mike and Tracy, who happen to have a lake house on Nolin Lake. In the past summers, Jo has spent a lot of time at the lake with them, and has mentioned several times that she would like for us to come down sometime. Sounded fun to me!! This actually materialized into a real plan this time, and we headed down Friday to experience some lake fun.

Other than Paul taking Pierce fishing on a boat in the spring, our kids have never experinced anything like this. Who are we kidding, I've never experinced anything like this, I've lived a sheltered life. More on that later.

Woo hoo!! Who's excited to go to the lake?! Can't you see the palpable energy in the back.

Here were our headquarters. Beautiful home.
There were about 23! of us there, and apparently it's like that most weekends in the summer. So to have a lake house it seems you sign on the line that you will always be surrounded by people. Not so sure I could handle that.
Had to get a picture of this dog, Cooper (Jami this is the second dog I've met named Cooper. Don't feel to bad, I used to always have people tell me, "I have a german shepherd named Gretchen.") he was HUGE. He was the SWEETEST dog I've been around in a long time, and Pierce was obsessed with him. Made me *sorta* want a dog.
Main reason for sharing this picture? Other than my pretty sister and baby. My tan that legends are made of is gone, and I am back to being my milky pale self. Oh, and I've decided after looking at pictures all weekend that my glasses aren't flattering. Why didn't anyone tell me this?

Saturday it was 454 degrees outside, of this I am sure. Before I even had the kids on the dock, I had their life jackets on, you know in case a gust of wind came and swept them in the big bad lake. We were feeling miserable almost right away from the heat, and I knew we had to probably get in that water. Look, I have lots of phobias and fears, and I come by it naturally. My dad, was the king of telling us about the bad things that happen to people. (hi dad!) He was in insurance, and that's the business of insuring for life's tragedy's, and then he would come home and tell us kids all about those tragedies and scare the jebbes out of us.

You must know that a trip to the lake was full of chances for me to freak out! Fast boats, cliff diving, dirty water, and snakes! Eek! All should be proud though, I threw my fears to the wind, and went for it with gusto. Oh, and LOTS of screaming, and praying to Jesus.

First up, I agreed to putting my life in the hands of my sister. You see the little head in between us? Hope went too, and she LOVED it. I was crying out for Jesus to take the wheel, and she was laughing her head off.

You know what stinks about doing water stuff though? You can't take your camera with you, so a lot of the things I did, I didn't get pictures of. After we dropped Hope back off at the dock, Jo took me out for some more time on the jet ski. I do believe she saw this as the time to pay me back for being a bratty sister for so many years, by the time the trip was finished I had lost my voice, and she had lost her hearing. I had a blast!!

Also, Paul took Pierce out on a jet ski too, but I couldn't get any pictures, so sad!! I was watching Paul fly around with my first born, oh heaven help me. Pierce loved it!!

After our time on jet ski's we all loaded up on the boats, and headed to this place here. Do you see those INSANE people up there? Okay, maybe I'm the insane one, but I like to think they are. Anyways, they climb up this cliff thingy, and jump 30 feet into the water.
All the boats were tied up, and there were basically two choices. 1) Jump from the cliff to an inenvitable death. 2) Swim so you don't burn alive from the heat. Seeing as I would not be jumping or any of my offspring would be jumping, it was time to swim in that icky lake water.

Here we all are!! If we're going to get some crazy water borne illness, let's all get it together!!

Later in the evening we went out to go tubing. We made the mistake of letting Hope watch the bigger kids go first. Those kids were being flung all around, and after that she had no desire to do it. She love the boat ride though!!Surprisingly, Pierce still wanted to do it! He had a blast!!


I also tubed after the kids. I'm afraid there might be some black mail worthy photos surfacing later.

I'm so glad that I swallowed all my crazy fears and just went with it. I had a really good time. It was nice to spend that time with Jo and the boys, and with Paul.
Besides, I would have never experienced this sweet moment had I not gone.


Thanks Jo for inviting us down, and thanks Mike and Tracy for being so gracious.