Relaxing on the Lake

About a month ago, I visited some church friends for dinner and movie night. We had the best time. Their house is right on a lake and we took their speedboat out for a sunset cruise.

What fun!

Getting ready to depart.

Her very cute dog Zorro went along for the ride.

YAH! Horrifying picture of me.

You try taking your picture while you are speeding along.

Not easy!

The sun was setting as we left.

Laurie and Stella.

Some of the bridges and old train tracks we went under.

Purply sunset.

The weather was getting overcast and we felt a few raindrops.

But if you drive fast enough you can out run them.

All of these boats were parked and listening to a band that was playing on the deck of one of the houses for their summer concert series. How cool.

Beautiful lake.

This brown house on the right had a drive up boat dock under their house. It was like a carport for your car. Except for a boat. Their master bedroom was on the front of the house and was wide open for everyone to view inside.

No curtains. That's a little too fishbowl for me.

The gardens around this house were spectacular.

It had a huge flock of Canadian Geese on the lawn.

I'm guessing the gardener doesn't like cleaning up after them.

This is that same brown house. See the peak to the right.

Master Bedroom. Weird.

Or maybe it was the left windows. I can't remember.

The house was like 8000 square feet.

More gorgeous lake.

I was so relaxed.

The sunset changed minute to minute.

First is was orangy, then changed to purply.

A crayola box would never be able to capture this.

Or this.

Or this.

What has been your moment of peace this summer?

Summer Happenings

I thought I didn't have much to blog about until I went thru some pictures and realized how much the kids have been doing this summer.

The Daughter celebrated her 10th birthday. How did that happen?

She asked for Dominoes for her birthday. Dominoes. What fun!

And celebrated with a few friends.

Tae learned to take self portraits.

I wish this child would stop smiling so much.

And this child had so much fun playing his new Finding Nemo game. Even installed the thing by himself. Yes, really, by himself. Our cat Kiwi, made sure he did it right.

We had some fun at the playground at the beach after a seafood dinner.

While Tae pretended he had hairy armpits and Morgan made a tupee' for him.

Our Fireman to be loves driving the firetruck.

The beach in the evening provided some relaxing downtime.

I learned it was ok to let your kids play with knives if they are going to whittle you a very cool cane. Perhaps wearing the linen white church pants wasn't the best idea though.

Moonlight the guard cat watched for things that moved....or didn't and then napped.

The frogs sunned themselves on the warm rocks.

We watched bugs and butterflies on the Echinacea.

And observed all the nature around us.

We practiced some gymnastics in the pool while I calmed my heart palpitations.

I didn't tape Tae's mouth shut. He made a doctor's mask and spectacle and carried his own doctor's case. Yes, he taped the mask to his face all by himself.

See?

Hope you are enjoying your summer.

And the Thunder Rolls

We were supposed to have all of the Homeschool Group over today for a picnic. I was really optimistic that the rain would go away because the day started sunny and 82 degrees. They were predicting Thunder storms all day and by 1pm I had to cancel the party. I'm glad I did because everything was soaked in the downpours. The picnic was supposed to start at 4pm, just when the first storm hit. We were going to have a campfire and catch fireflies but with all the rain the most we can catch is mosquitos and mushrooms. I will admit...I love storms...just not at my picnics when I'm expecting forty people.

The storms moved in very quickly. I don't know why but this reminds me of God's Eye.

We watched it roll in over the trees.

Faster it came.

And then this huge mushroom cloud exploded upwards out of nowhere.

And grew larger.

And played games of lightening tag and sounded very angry.

And as quick as it came it started to disappear but it still sounded very angry.

But the day was not completely lost. We managed to get our first swim in a very cold pool but it felt sooooo good for just a few minutes.

Morgan managed to annoy her big brother with a piggy back ride.

Tae had a great time. We pulled him out when his lips turned blue.

Stewie the wonder dog had a great time on the dirt pile from the pool install-yes last year and we still haven't taken care of the dirt.

Maybe we'll leave it for him to dig in.

Stewie even has his own pool. Spoiled dog. Never met a lab that didn't love water.

Hope you are having a great start to your summer too!