Seventy-one

Am returned home from a nice, long weekend at Lake of the Ozarks; specifically, Ben and Karla's place near Laurie, MO; more specifically, near mile marker 43. Due to issues I won't go into in any great detail (let's just say the closer I am to a bathroom at night the better off I am), we decided to find a hotel room for the four of us (Brian, Seth, Lacey, and I), but we spent the rest of our time (not sleeping) at Ben and Karla's place. Actually, that's not entirely accurate. Brian and Lacey each spent large chunks of time taking naps sprawled across various horizontal surfaces. Seth and I, not so much.

We drove down Friday and beat everyone else there, so we unloaded the groceries, scoped out the situation, determined there was no possible way I could navigate the stairs at night without killing myself, and went and found a hotel room. Went back to the house to find Karla and Erlan in residence, and Scott and Jenni Harvey parking and setting up their pop-up camper. Ben and Chip and Nicholas showed up shortly thereafter and we got the party started.

Saturday we swam and went out on the boat and some people rode the inner tube (main channel!) (not me) and we "parked" in a cove and had some lunch and swam some more off the boat, and then went back to the house (where we found Ben's sister Amy waiting for us) and cleaned up a little and ate a big supper (excellent burgers, Amy!) and then we went out on the boat to see the fireworks. Seth fell asleep on the way out. We found a spot, were waiting for the fireworks to commence, realized a storm was moving in, and turned and headed for the house. At which time we decided that cowardice was the better part of valor (or however that goes) and we pulled the boat tarp out and no sooner had we done so than all hell broke loose and we got RAINED on. But we were covered up and Ben got us home none the worse for wear. And yes, Seth slept through all of it. One thing to note: today Seth was brave enough to "swim" on his own. He was wearing a life-vest and pretty much *couldn't* sink, but finally let go of Daddy and struck out on his own. He was very brave and VERY proud of himself...and now, of course, we'll have to watch him a thousand times closer when we're anywhere near a large body of water. Now that he thinks he's unsinkable.

Today, Brian and Lacey decided to try a little fishing near our hotel room (we had a dock right outside our door, basically), but didn't catch anything so it was short-lived. We headed back over to Ben and Karla's where we had a big breakfast (excellent eggs, Amy!) and then pretty much just sat around and visited until it was time to leave. Brian helped Scott and Ben a little down on the dock, trying to fix one of the boat lifts. Seth and Erlan played together a lot ("We caught six roly-polys!") and we had some lunch and then headed home. Oh, yeah, also, this morning we stopped at little roadside park that we found between our hotel room and the road back to Ben and Karla's house, that turned out to be a little roadside park I was at, oh, maybe about twenty-five years ago. Has a little memorial to Zach Wheat (baseball player)...and we had gone down many moons ago with my dad so he could visit with Wheat's grandson (or whoever). Kind of a coincidence, I guess.

In any case, we had a good weekend and are looking forward to going again sometime. Oh, and uh...I forgot to take my camera. So if I can finagle some pics out of Karla, I'll try and remember to get something posted sometime. Otherwise, you're just going to have to take my word for it.