Beach Bum

This weekend was the epitome of Lake Living for me.

I wish every day could be spent exactly how I spent Saturday and Sunday….basically being a beach bum in my own backyard.

Living on a lake has been more enjoyable than I ever thought it would. I just wish I could enjoy it this thoroughly every day…but I'll take what I can get, and with the summer quickly dwindling away, I'm on a mission to spend as much as time as possible being a bonafide beach bum.

The enjoyable lake living actually started on Friday night after our softball game and subsequent trip to Casa Real, Kev and I retreated to the deck to sip on some adult beverages and relax in the anti-gravity chairs watching the moon dance across the water. It was lovely.

Saturday brought my cousin Lisa and her daughter Rochelle visiting from California. My mom and my sister's four kids also came out to enjoy the day. Owen had been asking for days when he would see Bella again and as soon as they got there, he ran out to the driveway to greet her and immediately said, "Bella, Bella, Bella! There's no girls allowed in my room!"

But, back to the whole Beach Bum theme of this post... Immediately following my mom's great lunch, we went down to the beach where we stayed for nearly 4 hours, during most of which, 10-year old Rochelle rarely emerged from the water. We don't see her very often (once every 3-4 years), so it was a special treat watching her interact so effortlessly with my kids and my sister's kids, who, Lisa and I decided, are like her 3rd cousins. Or her first cousins twice removed. Not really sure how that whole relationship thing works! It doesn't matter, it's still family. The kids had fun swimming, retrieving dive rings, hauling rocks out of the water to add to my on-shore rock collection, jumping off the paddle boat, and watching Kevin catch a decent size bass.

It was also fun for me to catch up with Lisa who does lots of really interesting things….she homeschools Rochelle, plays really tough word games (REALLY well), takes lots of different types of dance lessons, scuba dives, participates in square dance calling. Fun conversations. Too bad the top of Lisa's head got sunburned (darn those parts!)

Saturday evening brought Pat & Maria from Grand Rapids and their two girls plus my one girl (who spent last week in GR at Gramma Carol's and Grandpa Don's getting tremendously spoiled). Pat and the girls stayed home with Kev and the boys while Maria and I met up with Aimee (home visiting from Tennessee for the month) for dinner at Sagebrush and then dancing at Overtyme. Not an overly wild and crazy time, and completely un-beach bummy, but I sufficiently got my dance on. Just like our old dancing days....while at the same time nothing at all like our old dancing days!

Sunday morning, we went down to the beach immediately after breakfast with Maria, Pat, their girls, and my boys. Allison swam all by herself for the very first time (with the assistance of her Dora life jacket) and Rachel played in the sand. Such cute girls! They left to head back to GR (too soon) before lunch (taking Jordyn back with them for another week).

After saying goodbye to them, I returned to the beach for pretty much the rest of the day…. reading one of my favorite magazines, catching some rays, catching some ZZZs, pulling weeds in the water, and feeding my rock fetish. The boys were in and out of the water, back and forth at the beach, roaming from front yard to back yard: swimming, playing ball, playing Pokemon, and swimming some more. Once Kev was done watching the Tigers avoid being swept by the Indians, he came down and we took the paddle boat out so the boys could jump off the back. Owen doesn't really jump, he uses the ladder, but he's pretty brave for a 4 year old, out there in the middle of the "deep end", swimming and giggling, and getting increasingly further and further away from the boat.

Around 4pm, Kev & I retired to the hammocks where Liam fell asleep lying next to me. Ahhhh, perfection.

I can't wait to do it again!