More fun than I can even express

This week was so much fun...almost more than I can put into words!  Our cousins who have a place on Norris Lake invited us back again this year, and we all decided it would be great if it could coincide with other cousins who were visiting from Massachusetts at the same time.  Their daughters are 10 & 8.  Natalie (21) & her boyfriend went down from the Dayton area, and Dillon (22) drove down from Northern Kentucky.  All together there were 14 family members in the two houses spreading over three generations.  Oh my goodness, there was so much laughter!  There were a few times I had to fight tears because I know my Dad would've laughed out loud as I relayed stories and shown him pictures.  Even Sue Ann mentioned yesterday how much Dad would've enjoyed hearing about it.  At those times though, I just tried even harder to be so very grateful for the amazing experiences we were getting to have.

The best part was Thursday afternoon.  My MA cousins had rented a boat so we were spread out between the boats.  Our plan was to tube/ski down the lake to a marina for dinner, eat there, then tube/ski back.  That was going to be our afternoon.  We notice about 3/4 of the way there that the other boat hadn't been spotted lately.  Although our cells didn't work, we were fortunate that others' did and realized we had a message from them that the boat had stopped working.  We made our way back to them, and long story short, all 14 of us piled onto "our" boat.  It was the maximum legal amount so there were no issues there, and no one was a terribly large person so it was fine.  And in fact, I kept pointing out that I think it was actually more fun having us all on one boat.  The kids had a blast and there was just so much laughter!  It was exactly the time away that we all needed.

Two full days on the water is really all we can handle.  It's exhausting, and my body just can't handle the sun well.  There were some very tired people in this house last evening, but we certainly enjoyed our time away.  Now our focus turns to getting Robert ready to leave for band camp tomorrow!