How much does it cost to go to the lake???

An extra $100 if you are part of our crew and didn't realize that the KY Lake is so shallow in some areas that your pontoon will drag bottom. And then the nasty marina man had the nerve to insinuate that we "should have known" that every cove you enter coming from the north has a sandbar. Really?? Really???? I am sorry Mr. Marina Man but where we come from in Arkansas the lakes are several hundred feet deep. Ok. Rant is over. There is a rental pontoon with a brand new prop and I'm sure we are better for it. Whew....glad I got that off of my chest:)

But yes, outside of the extra dough we had a fabulous time on the lake! Both of my brothers came for a visit along with my brother Philip's girlfriend Shellie. All of us plus a couple of friends from work and we were set.

Most things these days are adventures b/c it is usually Olivia's first time for everything...lake included. So there is always the tiny bit of me thinking....I hope she does ok with this. No one wants to be stuck on a boat in the lake with a miserable baby...myself included! But she was great and seemed to really like it. There was one minor glitch of a forgotten binky, but that was taken care of by Shawn (who was I think secretly terrified at being on the lake without the binky). So we made our slow way back through the no-wake zone to dock and get binky (I think it might be a harder day for him than it will be her when the binky goes away).
One thing that goes along with our boat draggin bottom in the shallow lake is that feet also drag bottom when you get in to swim. I swim in lakes fairly often but for some reason had the creepers this time about all the possibilities of what could be in there. I resolved to never let my feet touch the bottom and made one incredibly inappropriate comment about the possibility of bodies being at the bottom. I meant it with all reverence and just did not want to come across one with my feet.

Big thrill of the afternoon? A leech. On our boat.

Before moving to KY I had never encountered wildlife like I have here. And I'm going to put the leech in the category with wildlife for right now.
It was disgusting. And somehow Philip convinced Shellie it would be a good idea to put it on her finger and let it attach. Bless her, I don't know how she will recover. Nevertheless, we threw the leech back in the water and all checked our privates when we got home to make sure we had not acquired any more unwanted wildlife.

I think it's ironic that even people who are clean and try to (in general) avoid germs will jump into the lake like it's a chlorinated pool (and I myself fall into this category). I mean this is basically a big bathtub full of thousands of people's germs as well as scary wildlife. One of my brothers tried to defend the lake water by pointing out...doesn't it all flow into a river and therefore cycle out the dirty water? Not fast enough my friend, not fast enough.




We are fixing to leave the house. We have packed everything but the kitchen sink. And we have one very excited duck on our hands.

Prior to the realization of missing binky/past naptime saga.

Stephen, Philip and Shellie. Prior to the leech incident otherwise Shellie would not be smiling.

And she is asleep....

We think we are alone in the water....

Until this...

And this....

This picture is a tribute to the missing sibling Kathryn. Please know Kat that our empty arms and bunny ears means we missed you bad:)