Summer Fun

We got back from the farm today. It was a three day trip. We got up there around lunch time on Thursday and left after lunch time on Monday. It was a really good time. 

When I was a kid we spent a week every summer in the Ozarks at a cabin on the lake. We swam and fished off the dock and water skied behind the boat. It was always the week my dad was in town (he spent the summer traveling for work) and my aunt took off work. It was a super fun week of swimming and boating and playing card games with family. 

The uncle whose family owned that house in the Lake of the Ozarks (my dad’s sister’s husband) now owns his own “house” (it is so big that the word “house” doesn’t seem adequate) with a private quarry lake behind it. Our new tradition is to go every year and spend a long weekend there: my parents and my two aunts and uncles, my seven cousins, their spouses (four of us are married) and the kids. 

It’s a ton of fun. We play and swim and explore. The kids have an incredible time and the parents do too. With so many grandparents around there is always a helping hand. Meat is grilled and dinners are prepared and we all eat together. Then we enjoy drinks together after the kids are asleep. Mostly we swim and have so much fun. 

I’m so glad my kids get to have these experiences, spending a few days surrounded by cousins and aunts and uncles, catching frogs at the “fairy pond” and spending hours in the lake. I hope these memories are as foundational for them as the Ozarks were for me. 

My husband goes home tomorrow and we fly back Wednesday afternoon. I’m definitely ready to head home, but am thankful to have a few more days to see my cousins.