So, Saturday was the big day for the party at Ella's classmate's lake cabin. Part of me was hoping for rain so the event would be postponed. The other part of me was looking forward to going because I am finding out that I rather enjoy Val's company and thought there was a strong possibility there would be a fun day in store for us. We woke up to the sun shining and the birds chirping so I knew the soiree was on. In spite of my nerves, I was excited.
The party was slated to begin at 10AM but I had let Val know we wouldn't be there until 1PM or so. After a morning of errands and household type chores, we finished off the leftovers (see, I do cook sometimes) and loaded the now clean vehicle (Thanks Jason) with towels, a cooler and all other beach-related necessities. The girls settled in to their seats after popping "Return to Witch Mountain" into the most wonderful invention ever, the built in DVD player. Even though I had perfectly good directions on the invitation, Jason is so in love with his GPS, he insisted I plug our destination in and after some finagling, I realized "Lake Madison" was not a destination the GPS recognized and so I just punched in Madison, SD and away we went. Now some of the more observant readers may have picked up on a minor issue that Jason and I didn't realize until almost an hour into the trip. This minor issue being.... I had us headed to Lake Madison, which is a very nice lake I am sure and probably had parties galore, but our party was at Lake Poinsett. It wasn't until we were creeping up on Lake Madison that I made this discovery. Thankfully, Lake Poinsett is directly north of Lake Madison and we were on the right path, just about 30 minutes short of the mark. Agreeing to keep this directional problem to ourselves, it wasn't long before we arrived at the correct lake. Of course, we came in from the wrong direction so it took us some additional driving and searching before we finally arrived at the Mickelson cabin. By this time it was 230PM and the party was in full swing. Apologizing for our delay (blamed on a late start and only a vague mention of getting turned around), we joined the festivities. Besides ourselves and the host family, there were three other KO3 classmates and their respective families. Our Year End Party Committe Chairperson was in attendance along with her husband and two of her children. The other two families I knew only from seeing them coming and going in the school so I was definitely out of my element. After some introductions, greetings and salutations, Val's husband was pulling up to the dock to drop a few people off so we quickly boarded and went for a spin around the lake. It amazed me that among people I knew only as acquaintances I could feel so relaxed. Lake living may be just what my tense shoulders and overthinking brain need.
(Ella and Max)
Following our tour of the lake, we docked and enjoyed some snacks on the deck while the kids played in the sand and in the water. Remarkably, I continued to feel very at ease. I carried on conversations just like a normal grown up is able to do. I didn't even cling to Jason as if he was a buoy and I was on the verge of drowning. I chatted, I laughed, I made jokes (don't worry, they were all very appropriate), I outed myself as a lover of Boone's Farm wine and I didn't get asked to leave the premises immediately. After some time of just hanging out and loving the perfect weather, we took another cruise on the pontoon. The girls had built up some courage over the course of the afternoon and decided it was time to give tubing a whirl. Grace and Ella hopped on with Max's little sister and although they were the slightest bit nervous, once the throttle was thrown, the smiles came. They could not have loved it more and of course, "It was awesome." Lily was feeling a little left out. I tried to explain to her, she was a little too small for tubing and that maybe when she was four she could try it on for size. She was determined to get her way and Val volunteered to take her. Lily gladly agreed to hop on an inner tube in the middle of a lake with a relative stranger and absolutely no swimming skills to speak of. Such is the nature of a 3 year old and away she went. She loved it as much as her sisters and Val said she didn't stop talking the entire time-big shocker there! They each took another turn and back to shore we went.
It was getting late and although the girls did not want to leave, Jason and I made the difficult to decision to pull the plug on the fun. Killjoys! It was way past feeding time so we took a detour through the Pizza Ranch in Brookings to feed our faces. The drive home was much quieter than the drive up. The sun and fun wore my three little beach bunnies out. As we were driving, the sunset was just spectacular and I pointed this out to the girls. Lily took it in and said, somewhat dreamily, "That is beautiful. It makes my heart so happy." What a perfect way to describe the whole day~my heart was happy too.
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