Going to the lake

Yesterday afternoon I took the three older boys and we went to play in the lake. It was the first time I had been to this particular lake. In fact, I didn't even know this lake existed until we moved to this house two years ago. Yesterday ended up being a good day to do it. Bryce had stayed home sick, so while Daniel was taking his nap, I took the other 3. It was a nice, warm day and will be cooler for the next few days until the weekend.



Anyway, after driving around for a bit to actually get to the lake (I didn't look up the directions first and had just been going by a sign I had seen before, then the road was closed...), we finally arrived. The boys were very excited when they saw the lake and wanted me to drive faster so they could go play in it with the water shooters Grandma and Grandpa had given them.

We pulled in the gate (and found out that it's free, even to launch a boat on the lake, so bonus) and parked kind of near the restrooms because Alex decided he needed to go. Of course, it was at this point where I found out that Ben and Alex had left their shoes home when they changed into their swimming suits. So Alex had to go into the bathroom, which was an outhouse and didn't have flushing toilets, in his bare feet.

We went back to the van after the bathroom break and got out our towels and things. It was then that I realized that I had not brought my camera like I had planned. I had put it in the diaper bag, only to decide after that I really didn't need to bring two bags and had forgotten to switch the camera to that bag. So now I don't have pictures of them playing in the lake.

Of course, not having shoes proved to be a bit of a problem getting from the car to the water. There were weeds all through the dirt down to the water, some of which were puncture vines, so they had to walk very carefully and still managed to get a couple of thorns in their feet. I carried them through parts of it. When we finally got down to the water, they pulled off their shirts and started playing with the squirters. It wasn't long until they were wading in it, actually going out pretty far as it was fairly shallow for a ways out. They would walk out until the water was at their necks and shoot each other with the water. They had a really good time and didn't want to leave when I said it was time. The whole way back to the van, they were talking about the next time we go to the lake and wanted to call their grandmas and grandpas and their cousins to tell them to come up and play in the lake with them. It made me almost wish we had a boat. :)

A few minutes after we got home, it started raining and rained through most of the evening. So we really went at just the right time.