Our Lake Weekend

The kids have waited and waited for this day. . .the day the boat finally comes out of storage and we take it to the lake and hope that it will start yet again and give us another year of fun.
It did :)

My annual "first picture" on the lake. . .they always crowd up to the bow and hunker down as soon as we are away from the dock and full-throttle down.

Margaret won the bet "first one in the lake" when, about 2 seconds after that last shot was taken, Marie's hat flew off. Margaret was the volunteer who jumped in the icy cold to retrieve it after Thomas failed to as we passed the hat by. The other three couldn't stand it so they promptly dove in to. . .and it was COLD. The air temperature was in the 90's but the lake water hasn't yet risen with all the cold and rain this last month.

Frederick, all smiles as he takes his first dip. . .

And Marie & Thomas huddled together in their towels after their jump in the water.

Since it was Margaret's birthday, she was the first to take a tube ride. . .

This was followed by Marie and Thomas together. . .then Margaret was back on until we got to our lunch spot. No one wanted to go over the wakes so it was a calm day on the tube.

There's Margaret for you. . .all show!

Lunch on the beach so no crumbs end up on Grandpa Fred's boat. . .

And some relaxing time for our captain. . .

The most perfect guy for us!!!
And I got a few pics with my kiddos too :)

Margaret got a few (okay, four) birthday phone calls while on the boat. Most calls went to voice mail and she had to call them back. . .I had to snap a picture at her happy face while talking to her family. She was ALL ABOUT the phone calls on Saturday. . .so much so that every time we stopped she asked if anyone else had called :)

Marie eventually got Frederick out on the tube for a bit. . .going very, very slow. . .

The others were actually out there too. . .all four of them. . .Thomas on the kneeboard and Margaret on her little blow-up thing we got in Alabama last year. . .

They thought that was fun. And then we pulled in the bungee rope attached to the tube and Margaret and her ski rope and Thomas traded the knee board in for his skis. . .

Oh yea, he got right up and just kept going. It was pretty rough out there so he wasn't in-and-out of the wakes at all but he "showed us" by getting out there in the cold lake water and doing it anyway :)

We ate dinner at the dock -- Margaret's choice for her birthday. She was tired and not in the mood for much more than food by then, but I did manage one picture with my 9-yr-old daughter today. . .

and then this last, beautiful pic of the day. . .a birthday girl with dinner in her belly, enjoying an ice cream as the sun sets over the lake behind her. . .a perfect end to a perfect day.

Here's a funny thing. . .I documented last year's first day on the lake here and. . .well. . .it was almost exactly the same (except four days earlier so there wasn't a birthday dinner included). . .so funny! And a great look back at how the kids have grown :)

Because it was Memorial Day weekend, we ended up visiting the lake again on Monday! This time the girls were invited to the beach (at the same marina that we put the boat in) with some friends and Thomas asked his soccer friend, JJ, to join us. It was another hot, perfect day! We didn't get out until almost 1 p.m. but stayed out until 6. . .another 5 hours added to the 9 on Saturday -- quite a weekend for sure! Hope to have many more like this one in 2011 :)