More Pictures From the Lake

My friend dropped off a CD off her pictures, so here are some more shots of our lake vacation. (You can click on any of the pictures to view a larger version of the photos.)


Sunset Cruise on the Pontoon Boat


That's M in the middle with two friends. They're getting ready to go tubing on the hot dog.


All the kids. Well, minus two of the 9-year-old girls. That's M on the far left (in the water) and L peeking out behind the two girls in the pink.


L with our friends' dog, Cassie.


M getting ready to jump off "The Cliffs."


B on the jet ski.


L and her best buddy.


M and friends.

Pictures from the Lake

Thought you might like to see some pictures from our trip to the lake. I'm terrible about carrying the camera around and never taking pictures. Luckily, two of my friends that were also there are bigtime photographers and scrapbookers and are always very generous about sharing pictures with us. However, I haven't heard from them yet, so I'll share a couple of the meager shots that I took.



Here's B and M on the jetski.


Here's M swimming with Cassie (that's the dog!) and a friend. The water is so clear and fresh - very nice!


Here's a sunset shot. We usually took a sunset cruise each night after dinner, which often ended up transitioning into a "starlight cruise" because we had such a good time and didn't want to head back! You could see millions of stars and several people caught sight of shooting stars. (I never got lucky -- I was too busy chatting, I guess!)

Here's B and L on the jetski. The girls love to drive the jetskis, but they have to be a little bit older before they can drive it solo without an adult accompanying them.

Back From the Lake!

We are back! I ended up being able to stay an extra night with M, because B brought L home for her friend's bat mitzvah.

We have a fantastic time this past week, but boy was I feeling adrift without internet access. There was nothing, nada, zilch. On the one hand, it was quite liberating - it sure does free up some time in the day when you're not spending it at the keyboard! But I really did feel out of touch. I have a ton of catching up to do.

Pictures and details coming soon!

Packing the Car

One thing that I hate about going on vacation is packing the car. Most of our vacations lately have involved air travel - so the hard part in that is packing the suitcases. Then they fit in the car no problem. But packing for a driving trip is so much more annoying to me. First of all, we tend to bring everything but the kitchen sink. Then, making it fit in the car in an orderly fashion is just beyond me. Usually this chore falls to Brian - it just seems to be a man thing, and anyway he is so much better at it than me. But he's working today, so it's up to me. He did get the bigger suitcases and the drink cooler in the car for me, so there wasn't too much heavy lifting. Everything is in it now and hopefully it will stay put until we arrive at the lake!

Off to the Lake!

I'd hoped to schedule posts to drip every day while I'm away, but I'm not sure I've completely mastered how to make that happen with blogger. It's a really handy feature that I use all the time at my About.com site. So, my brand new blog effort may sit idle while we're gone to the lake.
We are going to Smith Mountain Lake with six other families. From what I understand, cell service is spotty, so I don't have much hope for internet access either. I am not taking my laptop, but I will have my iPod Touch, so if I do get a wireless signal, I will send an update via that.
I am looking forward to it; it's our first visit but everyone says it's lovely. We are looking forward to doing some boating, hanging out with friends, and just relaxing. I'm taking several books: The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, which will likely take me months and months to finish, so I read it sporadically. But I also reading Austenland by Shannon Hale, and hoping to start Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, which is my summer reading assignment for book club.
Have a great week - and stop back next weekend for an update about the lake!