Day 7: On the Pontoon!

How better to spend our last full day

Than on a boat in the middle of the lake???

Dad and Chip left early this morning to pick it up

At the faaaar end of Long Lake

(You know, like 8 miles away)

And as soon as they reached our dock,

We were off!

It was an easy lake to maneuver—

I took a turn at the wheel

The water was a bit cold

But we all slowly plopped in

And once we got a rowdy game of baseball going,

We were ALL in!

Since the bases were also the flotation devices,

It made swimming the bases especially tricky

When your bases were chasing the ball that was just hit!

Needless to say,

There was a lot of frivolity

And shenanigans 

But that’s what vacation is all about

Taking in all the good times

As Golden Hour grew near,

We stopped for some pictures.

The kids

The Reeds

The Keims

And the parents

What you can’t see in this picture

Is that all of us are on the other end of the boat

Jumping up and down so that they are jiggling all over

Which led to this goofy picture

And then it was all about the goofy pictures

It’s been such a great vacay

We were determined to live up every last moment.

Grab the poles!

The fish are BITING!

Chris was on a mission to conquer her fear of leaches

And the fish appreciated it—she was on a roll

We all caught fish—

So many, we lost track!

We didn’t even have to put worms or leaches on the hook!

Chip brought in a bass!

And then, so did Tucker!

Even Jackson caught a few!

What a glorious night

The sunset just kept getting better

And better

We made it back just before dark

And made the best dinner out of all our leftovers

You have ever seen.

We cleaned out that fridge!

Us boys had another episode of Grand Tour to finish

While the girls moisturized while playing cards

Check out our last moon of vacay.

One last epic moon for one last epic day.

 

Day 6: A most memorable anniversary

Today is going to be an awesome day.

How can it not be

When you start out with one of Dad’s best breakfasts?

And feasting with all your friends on the deck?

And a set up like this???

We were excited to get out here

We did some floating

(Mostly to retrieve our blown away tubes

Or rescue our tackle)

There was a lot of fishing

Sometimes we needed the assistance of our “fishfinders”

They were dedicated

We did a lot of lounging

Who needs a pina colada?

Who doesn’t need a pina colada?

Remember what today is?

Mom and Dad’s wedding anniversary

And Chip and Chris’s 21st anniversary was just 2 weeks earlier.

3 years ago, we made them an amazing dinner. 

I had an idea to up our game this year.

While we started prepping,

The parents went on a fishing excursion

And Chip caught his first fish!

That’s the face of pure joy.

Nothing like Happy Hour on the water!

But before long,

The waitstaff were sent to collect them—

Beckett in the kayak

Tucker on the SUP

Brave in his dress clothes!

We shuffled them inside…

And got to work!

What do you think?

We did good.

We’re ready.

They are going to flip.

We led them out

And pretended they were going to sit on the deck

(Which is what they expected).

But, unfortunately, the Leach Family

(i.e. the leaches we’ve been using for fishing)

Had reserved that table,

So we had to seat them elsewhere.

A quick picture

(No one knew they needed fancy clothes!)

And we got everyone seated.

We had a blast serving them

And they had a blast being served

Over the top!

We did good.

We served ourselves too—

Cohen was our grillmaster

And we dined with the Leach Family

(Ignore the Picture in Picture—

It was Kaitlyn’s Be Real picture.  Good timing!)

It was PERFECT.

Need a group picture to commemorate this one!

Couldn’t have asked for a nicer night.

After dinner,

We caught some frogs

While we were getting the fire pit going

I think this was the first frog I’ve caught in my hands EVER!

Despite how lovely the night was

And our amazing 4th of July swag

We still got chased out of the yard by the mosquitoes.

No matter.  We rounded up all the citronella we could find

And were quite comfortable on the deck.

The night was so still and peaceful—

That’s the MOON!

We could have sat outside all night.

Can you see the stars?

There were billions.

Yep, us kids did it again.

We’re already making plans to top this one—

It involves helicopters and a volcano.