THE LAST HURRAH OF "SUMMER"

We don't have a lake house or a beach house . . .actually, I guess we do have a "lake house" . . .in Wadley at the farm.  There is an old farm house . . . and there is a lake.  That old farmhouse needs lots of work.

 

Both Mark and I love the lake and the beach.  I love the sunshine.  I crave sunshine.  I desperately need sunshine.

 

We had planned our yearly beach trip with Hayden and Jan and Guy and Phella . . .but we just couldn't get it to work for all of us this year.  Phella offered their lakehouse and Mark and I jumped at the opportunity.

 

We went down for a weekend earlier this month and the weather was totally spectacular.  We had blue skies and sunshine and it was perfect.  We all went down on Friday.  We went for a long boat ride and I could actually feel my body "sucking" in some much needed sunshine.  I think I had my eyes closed for a large portion of the ride.  The wind was whipping through our hair and there was a slight nip in the air BUT THE SUN WAS SHINING!!!

 

We came back to the house and ate dinner.  Mark had arrived with fish from our lake and a fryer . . . and a bottle of oil . . .and all the stuff needed to fry fish.  We had some hashbrown casserole in the freezer and we also took some hushpuppies and some jalapeno poppers.  It was a good dinner and I'm sure we ate too much.

 

After dinner, Guy made a fire in the firepit and we enjoyed sitting around and chatting.  We had great plans to watch a movie . . .but we were all too tired.

This is the view from their deck.  I love that little boat house - sort of in the middle of the picture (to the left).

Guy and Phella got out the paddle boards - I think this was on Saturday.  It warmed up nicely after a very cool (jacket needed for early fishermen) morning.

Mark spent a large amount of time in one of their kayaks.  He paddled around all around.  He made these "fish catchers" by cutting up a swim noodle into short sections.  He then tied line and a hook on them.  He placed them all around on Friday night.  Guy and Mark got up early and went around to check on them on Saturday morning and lo and behold, they caught big catfish.

Here is Mark with one of his fish.  We've been to their lakehouse many times but Mark has never caught any fish - he was excited to finally catch some fish there!!

So . . .since they caught more fish, Mark cleaned them and fried some more fish for lunch.  I didn't eat fried fish for lunch BUT I did taste it.  It was actually very good.  I've been trying not to eat so much fried food . . .my gallbladder or something inside of me hasn't been very happy lately.  I don't even remember what I ate . . .grapes and cheese log, I think!!

Mark was a happy man - proud to show off his catch.  He and Guy made a good team!!

 

On Saturday evening, we had cocktail hour on the dock.  Phella arrived at the lake with her blender (like Mark - have appliance . . .will travel - hahahaha!).  We enjoyed some refreshing beverages and then ate homemade Mexican food for dinner.

 

I needed that mini vacation. We drove on back to Birmingham later in the evening because Mark had to get up really early on Sunday because he was in charge of making coffee at church.  We decided it would be better to go on home on Saturday night.  Guy and Phella spent Saturday night at the lake and drove back in to church on Sunday morning.  We thought about staying . . .but decided we better head on back.

I'm hoping that the sunshine from that weekend will hold me for a while.  Do you need sunshine like I do?  So far, I've been very blessed - good skin, tans easily without burning (with 15 sunscreen).  The dermatologist tells us that our family has good skin - hopefully, we won't have problems with skin cancer.  I wish we could just stay out in the sun and soak it all up and not have to worry about skin cancer.

It was a really good mini vacation . . .time spent with the best of friends . . .it was the last HURRAH of SUMMER . . .in October :-)  That is the beauty of living in the south!!!