Almost a Week at the Lake

Last week I spent my 27th summer with my family at Sacandaga Lake. To be precise, I don't think we've gone for exactly 27 years because I think there were a few years that we vacationed elsewhere...but we've spent more weeks at this lake than anywhere else for vacation.

What began in 1984 as the Meeks family and the Knapp family (numbering 7 people) sharing a small two-family cabin has turned into a 21 person, 5 cabin vacation. Many of us having gotten married and had kids and we continue to all meet at the lake for vacation.

We missed my sister and her family this year due to Maddie's possible heart surgery on Tuesday (she has a cold so it could be postponed), but we thought of her everyday. In fact, the first day we got there I went food shopping with my mother and pulled a Kristen by forgetting my wallet and leaving my mother to pay for the whole thing.

The weather last week was not the best. It thunderstormed everyday and when there were moments of sun we all ran out to swim and take pictures.

Lily and I discovered two brave ducks Sunday before church and fed them bread. She's still in her pajamas, but of course the ever-present tiara is on her head.

Due to the wacky weather I had the kids dressed in the weirdest clothes. I wanted them warm, but not hot and I also didn't want to change them into three different outfits everyday. So that explains why Lily is wearing that crazy ensemble.

We have to keep Jamie away from markers ever since he learned how to remove the tops and suck the ink out of the tip. Yeah, that was a gross discovery of mine a few months ago. Lily must have thought it was easier to color this picture while sitting on the table. She's still in her pajamas...again...hmmm...I didn't realize how often I take pictures with my kids still in their pj's.

Now this is just unexplainable. When the girl gets dressed for anything she doesn't cut any corners. Her goggles aren't on her nose because she didn't like that feeling. The towel is a mermaid tail towel (bought on sale from $35 to $17!!) and then she found a random fish floaty.

Making her approach to the beach where everyone is already in the water. While she was walking down she was singing Ariel's song in which Ariel is giving her voice to Ursula (why? I have no idea).

I wanted a picture of both of the kids but Jamison was not interested. He also was not happy about holding his sister's hand.

She called this swimming.

Another attempt at a sibling picture. No idea what she is doing (yet again). At this point I have put Jamison in his swim suit. Before, I thought it was too cold for him so I was just letting him play (eat) sand and rocks. But then he saw Lily in the water and just walked in. And kept walking in until the weight of the water caused him to just fall in face first. It was quite a shock to him and I was amazed at his lack of fear.

This kid doesn't really play with any toy that he can't destroy or eat. So this was a rare moment of him actually playing with a toy.

I put this picture in here mainly for the clouds. You can see the sun on the right and then the thunderclouds moving in on the left. This is almost how the entire week looked. One day the thunderstorms started on the opposite side of the lake and we watched it travel to us.

I don't know if you can see the sand around his mouth or not, but that's what he was basically doing the whole time. I gave up even trying to get it out of his mouth after awhile. What in the world would make him want to eat sand?!? It doesn't even taste good.

Lily and Daddy on the jet ski.

His head wound is healing and he's loving the sand.

Jamie and Daddy on the jet ski.

Brian and Jamison on the jet ski, Lily on her floaty with scary thunderstormy clouds in background.

I have given the kids baths together before but I've never thrown them in the shower together. Since we only had showers in the cabins, we had no choice and they loved it. Jamison loved it so much that a tremendous temper tantrum erupted when I took him out after 30 minutes.

The next night we actually kept them in there so long we ran out of hot water. Jamison still was mad that we took him out even though the water was frigid.

This took three adults and 10 minutes to get this shot. Nathan, Emerson, and Lily. Nathan is Jared and Michelle (Morris) Mostoller's son and Emerson is Bill and Tamar (Hemmerich) Knapp's son.

Then the boys started fighting and Lily started to princess pose...the usual.

Brian and I even got the chance to take a picture. I was on my way into work for a few hours so I'm a bit dressed up for the lake.

Despite the lack of sun that did not restrict the flow of sunblock. We applied that stuff to our melatonin deprived children. Neither us nor our children tan - we go from white to red and back to white.

Tamar had to put the death grip on Emerson in order to apply the block.

The Mostoller's made it a family event.

Lily LOVES sunblock...or anything that comes in lotion form. She put it in on Brian and the results of her application were evident that night. She missed a few random spots all over his back.

Lily was determined to sleep on the top bunk of the bunk bead. She had no worries about it until the thunder and rain started and I don't blame her - do you see how close the roof is to that bed?!?

We ended up going back home on Friday because my common cold took a turn for the worse and I has having problems. Brian did all of the packing for us and loaded all our things plus my mom's things into the car. As we were about to leave Tamar offered me her last dose of Nyquil and for reasons beyond all understanding I took it then - at 10 in the morning. The results were not pretty and I can't really remember the rest of the day. I just know that Brian took care of everything and everyone while I was semi-comatose.

Today I went to urgent care and was diagnosed with bronchitis. What a fantastic way to end our vacation! At least the kids had a good time.