The Lee Family: Fun on the Lake!

I woke up, made a cup of coffee, and walked Buddy at 7:30 around the neighborhood. It's very wooded, so I half expected to see a lot of wildlife and wasn't sure who had dogs or cats along their street. Buddy loved to just roam and sniff and pee on as much as he could and it ended up being just us two as we walked. We returned to eggs and sausage for breakfast and the girls were blurry eyed, but awake. The apparently couldn't get to sleep so they goofed off together for a bit, but at least they were quiet about it. As soon as breakfast was done, the girls had their swimsuits one and ran down to the lake. By the time we arrived at the dock, they were both swimming and playing in the water. When we arrived with all the things we'd need for a fun day on the lake, I noticed Sofia didn't have her glasses. I asked her where they were and she said "No idea." This was a bit concerning, since she really good at taking them off and putting them somewhere safe and I was worried that she'd somehow jumped into the lake with them and they came off. However, that seemed unlikely since she would certainly have noticed when she came up from the water and couldn't see. We figured she'd left them in her room when she changed and all got onto the boat. Sofia couldn't wait to ride the hot dog! She remembered how much fun she had on it when we were last visiting Dan and Becky and couldn't wait for more. Dan hooked the hot dog to the boat and Sofia and Olivia jumped on! Olivia isn't as daring as Sofia, but she does love to do fun things and we figured she would love it too.

Dan took off and the girls had a great time! They were all smiles and just loved zipping along the lake on the hot dog. At one point they fell off and Olivia was done. She wanted no part of that anymore. Sofia rode the hot dog for a bit by herself and then we returned to the dock to get the Chariot, which is a huge round inflatable that can hold two large adults or an adult and two kids either sitting up on on their bellies. I rode with the girls on either side of me and we had a great time. It was really fun, especially when Dan would make the Chariot go flying across the water when he would turn the boat. Olivia wasn't so sure how much fun it was and she wanted off. I signaled to CK to tell Dan to stop. Once we stopped, Olivia and I jumped into the water, which felt great and then CK climbed onto the Chariot with Sofia. They had a great time and zipped all over the lake! There were a few times were it looked like they would be tossed out of the Chariot like rag dolls, but they managed to stay in and were all smiles.

Dan took us over to an overhang of rocks so the girls could jump off the rocks into the lake. There is a huge cliff across from their lake house where kids jump off, but it is much too high. Even Sofia would balk at it. Instead, he took us to a place that was maybe 5 feet off the water. The girls and I jumped in and it was really fun. Sofia loved it and Olivia was a little less certain, so they ended up jumping together while holding hands. It was really cute. Once that first jump was out of the way, Olivia was up for more. I only jumped once and was fine, but the girls could have stayed there all day. The ended up going up to a higher point that was maybe close to 6 or 7 feet and jumping from there. Sofia is such a thrill seeker and loves all sorts of fun things like that. Olivia isn't as sure, but she likes to follow her sister. They had so much fun.

We stopped by a colleague of Dan's who has a lake house across the lake from them. We picked up Barkley and his daughter, Becca who is in her early 20s. She is very sweet and easy to be around and the girls instantly gravitated to her. She brought her lake surfboard and Dan pulled her and she was up and surfing the boat's wake in no time. It was so cool! It looked like she could do it all day too! Barkley also surfed, although he isn't as good as his daughter is, he still was good. CK tried it and Barkley was a great instructor. He got up quickly too and was really good at it! He surfed for a bit and then we dropped Barkley and Becca at their house and headed over for lunch. Becky made us all sandwiches and they really hit the spot. They were so good and again, it felt like we were staying at the Ritz Carlton, since it's so comfortable and Becky makes it all look so easy. Unfortunately, Sofia looked for her glasses and we had no luck finding them. We all spent nearly an hour going through everything in the house, on the deck, searching the boat dock, etc and we all came up empty. Sofia was so upset. She's never misplaced her glasses before and without them everything beyond 15-20 feet is blurry. I felt terrible for her and finally decided to ask Stacy to go into our house, get her extra pair of glasses and overnight them to us. This make Sofia feel a little better but she was till very upset.

After lunch we decided to go back out on the boat while the girls decided they wanted to stay behind and play off the dock or build sand castles on the shore. Becky said she would stay on the dock and watch them, so we headed over and picked Barkley and Becca up and Becca's two friends who were visiting for the afternoon. They both grew up going to the lake on the weekend so they were good at surfing, wake boarding, etc. Somehow they convinced me to try surfing and with Barkley's tutoring, I actually got up and was up and surfing for a while. It was so much fun! It was tiring on my leading leg and my arms, but otherwise it was really easy and fun. All the girls too turns surfing before we dropped them off again and headed back to Dan's house. Buddy was so excited to see me. I'm sure he thought I'd left him forever! He was wet and Sofia told me he "wanted to swim" which I knew wasn't true.

We took showers and changed into dry clothes and Barkley, his wife and Becca picked us all up in their pontoon boat. It's roomy and comfortable to sit and ride on the lake and goes much faster than it looks like it can move. The plan was to boat for nearly an hour to a restaurant that recently opened up that has live music and we could eat dinner and check out the music. Both girls sat together at the very front of the boat and loved having the wind go through their hair. After about 15 minutes, Sofia put her head down and she eventually fell asleep probably because all the lake houses, and scenery is a complete blur to her eyeglass-free eyes. I really felt bad for her and her lack of being able to see and vowed to pack her extra pair of glasses next time we travel.

We arrived at the dock/marina near the restaurant and it was crowded! The trip over was so peaceful and it was fun to look at all the lake houses as we went along. Most are average and look cozy and a few are huge and look like castles! We lucked into finding a spot to tie up the boat and headed up to the over-crowded restaurant. We ordered and found a table for all of us with the music over to our right. Olivia loved trying to jump from curb to curb in the parking lot, so I spent a lot of my time out there watching her. Our server amazingly found us in the chaos and our food was really good! I had a salad with shrimp and it was perfect. After eating, we headed back to the pontoon boat and home. The trip home included a lot of starts and relaxing on the benches. Olivia nearly fell asleep in my lap and CK actually did fall asleep! It was really relaxing, so by the time we made it back to the house we just all went to bed and sleep. I know the girls never want to leave.

The view from Dan and Becky's house with the dock and their golf cart used to carry everything to the dock. It's a good life!