Week with our daughter, grandsons, and friend

July 20th our daughter Amy with our grandsons, Andrew and Jackson, and their family friend, Laura Guse arrived around 8:00 in the evening from HOT southern Indiana. The first thing they all said as they exited the car was how wonderful the natural air conditioning felt. It was a cool 74 and windy. It was Amy’s birthday and after a quick supper of sandwiches and chips, we had cake and ice cream with candles. Rich, Phyllis, John,Judy,Ron and Connie joined us for the festivities, and there was still time for a short boat ride to start the week off. Saturday was spent with Don giving jet-ski rides and tubing behind the boat. Sunday after we attended church, we had breakfast in Hessel, and Laura, Amy, and I attended the Hessel craft show while Don and the boys returned to the campground. We started Sunday afternoon watching the Safety Video for driving the Jet Ski, then it was off to the water with Don taking each one for a check ride, then letting Amy and Laura drive it themselves. They both did well on “the learning key”,and the next day with more jet-ski experience, they advanced on to the “sport mode key” which allows you to go really fast! I won’t say how fast. Let’s just say when you start speeding up, a message comes up on the Jet Ski that says “tell your passenger to hold on”. The rest of the week was spent on the jet-ski, taking boat rides, swimming at the roadside park, playing tennis, biking around town and to the grocery store, board games, lots of good food, and of course "dock time" watching the sunsets. This morning Don and I had our annual pancake breakfast on the water near our camper and 30 people attended. Shortly after the breakfast Piper spotted a chipmunk climbing up a tree and she went up the tree to catch it, just like a cat. It was really hilarious! We had a perfect morning for the breakfast with sunshine and a gentle breeze, but by 10 A.M. it started to warm up. John and Judy took Jackson, Andrew, and Laura tubing after our breakfast. Amy set up her outdoor office under our tent during the week and worked on a grant she was finishing. Some of the days were very warm, but most of them were cool with some wind, and the water was also very warm. I might mention that the water is very low this year and unusually warm for July. I'm sure it is because of the warm fronts everyone has had all summer. Another annoying problem has been the lake weeds growing very close to the surface of the water which gets caught in the propellers of the boats. Our family have one more day here, then its back to HOT Indiana on Thursday. Tonight we took a longer sunset boat ride through Snow’s Channel to Hessel, then out to Coryell Island because tomorrow looks like rain.

Jul 24, 2012

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