Summer Fun at the Lake

Because I have just started this blog I am going to back track a little and fill you in on some of our summer fun. Even though the lake levels were extremely high this year, we managed to go quite often on either our ski boat or Lesli and Tommy's pontoon. There were no shorelines to pull up to and stay the day, so we fashioned a swim area out of fun noodles and made the kids all stay in sight. Last year Hunter was a little scared of getting in the water, but this year was a whole different story. He watched his brothers jump off the boat with interest and then started out jumping into the water from the pontoon doorway, but after that was not dangerous enough, he quickly graduated to completely jumping off the back of the boat!!! As you can see, the back of the boat has a platform (which is pretty high up from the water) and he would get a running start and just jump as far as he could, eyes open and all, and land in the water. He would bob up out of the water with his eyes still open and say "that was fun, I go again". It was the funniest thing you ever saw! He absolutely exhausted himself jumping off over and over. Hunter is quite a swimmer too. He loves his Diego life jacket and knows just how to maneuver in it to swim quite fast.

Jordan surprised us this summer as well. He has always wore a life jacket until this year. He decided to take it off one day and to our surprise, he swims pretty well. He loved jumping off the back of the boat too. The boys would all have diving and jumping contests to see who could do it the best, craziest, or make the biggest splash. (Winner of biggest splash goes to Kieth) Riley and Dakota are great swimmers as well. They love to have contests to see who can swim to a certain point the fastest. They also like to wear their goggles and dive for things.

As for me, well, I am still afraid of the water. Especially after the snake incident. It happened on one of our last trips to the lake this year. Lesli and I were floating on fun noodles and visiting when we realized that we were pretty far away from the boat. Kieth, Tommy, and all the kids except for Harley (who was with us) were on the boat. Anyway, we were just talking and all of a sudden Lesli looks to her right and staring her in the face is a water snake flickering his tongue! She turns to me and yells SNAKE!! I looked over and sure enough, it was a snake swimming right next to us. At that point we both freaked out and started flailing around like wild house cats and tried to swim towards the boat. We abandoned the fun noodles and swam like we were in the Olympics (well, maybe it wasn't that graceful). We must have looked like idiots because everyone on the boat was laughing hysterically at us. We never stopped screaming until we actually reached the boat and got on. I have never swallowed so much lake water in all my life!! (That happens when you swim and scream at the same time) So much for saving a damsel in distress, by the time we reached the boat, our husbands needed CPR from laughing so much. Needless to say, this event added to my list of reasons to be scared of the lake, what with sharks, dead bodies, human-size catfish, and now anacondas!!! Thankfully, I have a full winter to stifle all my irrational fears because come next year, the kids will be ready to spend another summer at the lake!!