Annual trip highlights

We headed out on our annual vacation with our fifty friends (yes, actually more this year) from our Bible Study group that started meeting together about 4 years ago. This group that goes to Flathead Lake together is parents and kids, a few extra friends thrown in, and it always ends up being at least 50 people. But we have the most fun and intimate time you can imagine. Several of the families have ski boats or access to ski boats, and they are so generous to share. We stay at a little hotel (get a discount because one of our members family used to own the place) and spend our days at a public park that has a boat launch, dock, play ground, and picnic structure. It is so much fun. Breakfast is free at the hotel, and lunch and dinner are pot luck! (Not so great for my diet.) I got up early Saturday morning and got a walk in. The sun was just rising like this:

The lake is huge, and we use a part that is really the river, but damned up a bit. It is sheltered from wind, and is quite deep in places. This time that was fantastic, because the weather was over cast much of the time and not super warm.

On our way there Andy pointed out that his finger was broken from our trip way back two weeks ago to the rope swing and Cliff Lake. It was so obviously broken - pointing the wrong way, but for two weeks he has kept it to himself. So, off to the pharmacy to get a splint. It shows we have not been spending enough time together, because this is something I should have noticed right away. Glad we were getting some time together this weekend.

Despite the broken finger, he still took his first ever shot at this - wake boarding. He's a wonderful water skier, but had not tried this before.

This is one of the young men on the trip with his folks, who is excellent at this sport. He went right before Andy. Pretty impressive, don't you think!

Then came Andy, who was amazing, especially considering he had never done it before, and he was holding on to the rope with a broken finger. The folks who own the boat were so impressed that this was his first time. He got up on the first try, and stayed up quite a while. Then, he even jumped out of the wake and caught a little air - to be measured in inches, not in feet like the young man, but still, for a first timer, amazing. I was not surprised because my handsome husband is often naturally gifted at this kind of thing. And obviously, he had a great time. And wonderful news is, just like water skiing, it does not cause him pain in his arthritic hip. He can do it freely! That is really exciting, especially since most of his enjoyable activities cause him pain. We may have to figure a way to get a boat so he can be active and pain free in the summers! Meanwhile, J is having a ball! When we were coming home we asked him what was the best part of the trip. He said "being with my friends," which was right in line with the sermon we had in our worship gathering on Sunday morning. (One of our pastors is in this Bible Study group, so he and his family were with us.) The sermon was about our need for fellowship and friendship with each other. J referenced that, which made me happy that he had paid enough attention to get that from the talk. He and his little friend B are the same age, and really have a ball together. And independent of one another, they both decided to bring their snorkeling gear. That was just hours of fun!

Plus, he graduated to tubing with the bigger kids because he is ready for rougher rides. He likes it fast and bumpy, but isn't as thrilled when he can't be safely in the middle. He had a couple of real challenging rides, but not dunks, so all in all he had a great time. And we all went on a little boat ride together on Sunday morning before the worship service, and J took this pic of his old folks. And we got this one of him, which leaves no doubt he had a great time! This is pretty much the highlight of our summer year after year. Love it! So blessed to have this opportunity!

Now, tomorrow I send J off to school. We have chilly temps today (not going to get past 45 degrees) and this evening I'm doing another photo shoot, which will definitely have a fall theme to it - jeans and sweaters necessary to be comfortable out there.

Hope everyone had a great three day weekend!