Memorial Day Memories

We were finally able to get that long-awaited, first boat ride of the season on Memorial Day!

And it was well worth the wait.

We spent the whole day boating, swimming and soaking in the sun...

One of my most favorite things to do in the whole world.

I think it's quite obvious that I've passed this trait on to my son.  He can't get enough of the boat.  He loves the water and he just loves to sit and relax and enjoy a nice boat ride!  Like his mama!

I could literally live on the boat.  I never want it to end.  I'm like a kid at the park or swimming pool...when the fun time has come to an end I refuse to give it up.  I even ask for "one more time!" or a "few more minutes!"  I guess I'm still a kid at heart.

Like this one!

So many days were spent boating during my summers growing up at the lake.  We would literally spend all day, from sun up to sun down, on the boat (and there is nothing quite like watching the sunset reflecting on the water!).  We brought snacks.  Inner tubes.  Sunscreen.  A good book.  You just can't beat it.  We used to line up all of the boats at the beach with all our lake friends and grill hot dogs on our neighbor's pontoon while swimming, suntanning and just basking in the glow.  Those are some of my very best memories of growing up.

Nothing warms my heart more than to share this life with my son.  Sure, it's different now.  Minus a few other boats and friends and family who have left us.  Minus our lake home across the street (we do the hotel thing now, but it's fun too!)  Just different.  Things change.  Life changes.  

 When this little boy came into our lives everything changed for the better.

The summer I got pregnant with him was the same summer we had made the life-changing decision to sell our place at the lake.

"Life-changing" may sound a little dramatic.  But it was.  For me anyway.  I didn't know how to spend a summer not at the lake.  Since we all had the summer off growing up, we literally up and moved to the lake.  All summer long.  And never looked back.

I met one of my lifelong best friends at the lake.  We had two sets of dishes, furniture, bedding.  We just made it work.  And it was the best thing in the world.  And I miss it.   I miss that life.  But you know what they say...

When God closes a door...he opens a window.

He gave us Andrew that summer.  Something to heal the pain of selling the summer home we had come to know and love for over 30 years...

God's timing is simply amazing.

So I still cling to those memories.  But now we make new ones.  Different ones.  And Andrew is a part of them now, and it truly doesn't get any better than that!

I love watching my boys drive the boat.  It makes me smile thinking of me driving with my dad so many years ago.

And there's always time for naps on the boat.  Because there is no laundry to be folded, or dishes to unload.  That is the other thing about spending time on the boat.  It is the one place I can actually let myself relax and not think about all the things I have to get done.

Because, quite frankly...I just don't care.

For some reason at the lake, my mind can just focus on the lake.

And the memories.

And the fun.

And the fact that this kid has the cutest toes of any kid I've ever seen.  I love how they overlap on his right foot.  I could just eat them up they are so cute!  Ha!

It's the simple things.

 On our way home from the lake we stopped at my dad's gravesite.

It was Memorial Day, after all.  And we can't enjoy a day like that on the lake without thinking of dad, and how much he loved those days too.

I think he'd be proud of us for continuing to make those memories with Andrew.  And I know he'd be proud of my mother for the kind of grandmother she is to Andrew.  And proud of me, too.  Because he never let a day go by without telling me he loved me, and that he was proud of me.  I never doubted that.

And this little guy?  Well, words can't describe how proud he would be of him.

I don't even think he'd mind that Andrew was jumping off his headstone!

I think he was smiling down on all of us...