a saturday up north

Yesterday we went to visit Jay's parents. They used to live not far from here, but when they retired, they moved up north to their lake place, turned it from a little northwoods cabin into a home.

jay's dad up on his perch...porch

Jay's brother and his family were there, and John and Dannell, t.c. and l.c.



l.c. and our nephew

tim catching frogs

Jay's brother has all the lake toys, the jet ski, the big, fast boat, and he shares them all. It's awfully nice.






After Jay had given all the kids numerous rides on the jet ski, he coaxed me for a ride, "Sit in front--you won't even get wet."

We headed across the lake and along the shoreline past the bays, down to the end where the lake is wild with reeds and cat tails, turns to a bog. There aren't cabins on that end, just eagles and loons. His arms were warm over mine, and his voice was in my ear.

As we flew over glossy water the color of bottle glass, memories of when we were teenagers at this lake came gushing forward as images, no words. I could picture all of us in the sink hole, chasing each other in boats, long brown arms and legs, all of us shoving each other on the diving dock. I pictured my mother in law driving the boat, and her parents along with us, trolling for notherns. I could hear her mother's happy cheer when someone had a bite.


dan with my mother in law's father, at the lake,1982

When we headed toward the access, I remembered the day our dog threw up in my lap, carsick, when we were almost there. He stopped and I jumped out with Tammy, and ran down the landing into the water to rinse the puke off my jeans. All at once, there Jay was leaning over out the passenger door hollering, "The drop off! Val! THE DROP OFF!"

Oh dear, yes that, forgot about that. I stopped before we went too far, and the dog and I walked the rest of the way to his parents.


Anyway, it was a lovely day. They pulled kids on water skis and tubes.

our daring little nephews



Our niece and some girls next door had put together a little carnival. I guess they worked on it all week, and it was really fun. The kids loved it.


the water balloon toss

rock painting

face painting

My grandbabies were there too, and that was pretty fun. It's not very often I spend time alone with l.c. but yesterday we did get some time. I sang him You Are My Sunshine while his dad was fetching the diaper wipes and he grinned at me as if thinking, "You weird lady."


While John cooked, I amused him on the deck. We didn't have a lot of toys, but we did have a little cardboard box. I pretended something amazing was inside, and then crept it over to him to show him. He's smart. He got the game, looked in the empty box and pretended to be amazed too. I found a spoon and stirred in the box and pretended to eat. He did the same thing, even offered me a bite of imaginary food.
So sweet.

Then it was finally time to leave. We hated to go, but it's a long drive back home. When we were going, I asked Julia to go to the bathroom. Of course she said no, and I said yes. We are not stopping in ten minutes because you changed your mind.

She acted very suspicious and passed something to my mother in law, still acting weird. I didn't get it. She darted into the bathroom and slammed the door.

Turns out she'd asked for a GIGANTIC chocolate-chocolate chip muffin to eat in the car and was hiding it from me under her shirt.

I don't care about the muffin, but she could never eat a muffin practically bigger than her own head! Plus we'd just finished eating supper! She wasn't hungry!

My niece and her friends were looking at me strangely, like that Aunt Val gets so crazy. I told them, "This is what she does. She takes huge portions, something of every darn thing there is, and eats maybe TWO BITES and decides she's full. It's so wasting. And she does it constantly, all the time. It drives me crazy." They nodded, not sure what to say.

My mother in law was snickering and said she knew that and didn't care. I looked the other way when Julia came out of the bathroom and pretended not to notice the huge lump in her shirt.

Okay, here comes the best part. As we're leaving, she begins nibbling on the muffin because now she knows I won't try to make her put it back. We were not even a QUARTER MILE down the road--we were still on the dirt road leading out of the woods--and she asked me if I had any kind of container so she could save the rest of the muffin to eat later.

Oh. How did we not know this was how it would go? Oh, it's always the same. Kids are nuts.

Some day she'll grow up, but it won't be today, thank goodness.

This morning in church it was hot as a sauna, but when she held up her hands in that little gesture for me to pick her up? I did. I won't be able to hold her on my hip much longer and not going to pass up any request--that'd be stupid because we cannot go back and do it over.

the most awesome barbie cake my niece baked for her last week

Anyway, it was a beautiful day, laid back company, nothing but fun. Onward to Monday. love, Val