Good Fortune

Summer time is lake time, here in southwest Missouri. Some of my favorite times in the past few years have been with Dave, our kids, and the friends we have made at the lake. We still keep in touch with many of our lake friends, and have been down to the dock to visit a couple of times already this year. And while we love to see them, it also really makes us ready to get our own boat out of storage and get back in the water!

Dave has done an amazing job of tracking our finances each month, and we've both been pretty good about making sure we're staying within budget, so we're definitely getting closer to being able to get it out of storage. That Dave Ramsey, he's kept us on the straight and narrow - a great thing, even if we have missed our boat for the past two years.

A couple of Saturdays ago Dave, Jace and I had lunch at Leong's Asian Diner (I would recommend it, for any of you who live here - a little more expensive than other Chinese takeout, but worth the extra money in my opinion - scrumptious pork fried rice!) We were getting ready to drive to the lake to see Chris and Jana, and some other friends on the dock.

While we waited for our food, Dave took the iPad out, giving me a quick update on paper where we were time-wise with our finances, and we were discussing what we would need to do on the boat to get it back out. Painting the bottom will be the biggest expense, but it needs to be done, and the smart decision would obviously be to do it before we put it back in the water.

We grabbed our fortune cookies on the way out of the restaurant, jumped in the car, and headed south to the lake. Jace and Dave's were pretty typical fortunes, something nebulous about luck or admiration. But mine - now, mine is truly the real thing. Don't you agree??



Unfortunately, we can't live our lives by the cookie's fortune, so this weekend didn't find us at the lake in our boat. But perhaps we will be back on Banana Pancakes by next summer, enjoying the sunny days on the water.

This weekend we had a couple of projects here at home, although the pending rain has kept us from completing the bigger of the two. Dave powerwashed the back deck on Friday, and it is ready to stain, when the weather cooperates. So we opted to start remulching the flower beds yesterday, putting fresh cedar mulch after spreading a weed deterrent. It did rain last night and this morning, so we were glad that we didn't start on the deck. Today we'll hopefully be able to finish the flower beds, and maybe grill out tonight.

Speaking of today, happy 32nd birthday to Tara, the youngest of my sisters!

Rest and Relaxation

I had to put this picture at the beginning of the post, just to set the mood - don't we look relaxed and happy? It was a wonderful weekend, I enjoyed every minute of it ... just enough relaxation to feel ready for the rest of the work week, while still having accomplished a few things. Ok, well, probably more relaxation than accomplishments, but it was sure nice!

Jace and I had a little mom/son time Friday night, and watched "New Moon", the second movie of the "Twilight" series. Then he headed to his dad's on Saturday morning for the weekend, and called me tonight to tell me about the fish he caught; he was so excited, said it was "at least a foot or foot and a half long!". What is it about guys and fish? He's starting this whole exaggeration thing pretty early - pretty soon the fish will be 3 feet long, etc! He's excited about fishing in Florida, getting a head start in the pond behind his dad's house. Tomorrow is Field Day at his school, so I'm taking off work in the morning and helping with the events. And Wednesday is the last school day of the year, and time for summer vacation.

Dave and I headed to the lake Saturday about 10AM, to hang out with Chris and Jana on their boat. I made to the gym for an 8AM cycling class, to at least get a little exercise in to counteract my plans for indulgence over the holiday weekend - hamburgers, chips, dessert and more... yum!

We headed out to a cove on Tablerock, dropped our anchor and tied up the boat with Jeff, Michelle and Sydney, some new friends of Chris and Jana's, from their dock. That's Jeff on top of his boat, hanging out the front window of the sedan bridge, while Michelle is driving.


When you're anchored out on the lake, the humans can use the bathroom on the boat, but the doggies have to get to shore to do their duty at some point. So, Chris swam over and back with them - he makes a pretty good water taxi, doesn't he?


We grilled out while we were in the cove, and then cruised around a bit at sunset, enjoying the view and getting a few pics before heading back to the dock for the evening.

We headed home mid-morning on Sunday to get ready to have Neil and some friends over for a barbecue later that evening. Dave made ribs and beercan chicken on his Big Green Egg, and we had Napa salad, strawberries, corn on the cob, and dessert - all low fat and Weight Watcher approved - ha! In keeping with our spring weather the past couple of months, the rain did make a brief appearance just as Dan and Gail were getting ready to come over. Thankfully the grill wasn't affected by the showers, although I did have to cover all the seats with some fashionable trash bags so that we could sit outside for dinner.



And, to wrap up the evening, we celebrated Paige's 19th birthday, thinking of her while she is in Japan:


Check her blog out, she had plans for her birthday, and has been very busy over the past several days. We miss you, Paige - happy birthday!

Today was quiet; did make it to the gym this morning, Gail and I walked/ran the track and then cycled for 20 minutes. Other than that, just took it easy, getting laundry caught up, reading, and watching a movie with Dave tonight. Sometimes it is really nice to have a weekend like this, and it felt okay to do so, especially since we did get so much done last weekend!