Lake Life (One Last Time)

It's no secret that the lake is my happy place! There are moments throughout the year when I hit low points and just dream about the summer days at the lake. Everything about our trips there is my favorite....the scenery, the relaxation, the family time, the games, the long days at the dock, the dinners that drag out with long conversations, the sunsets and storms, and the years and years and years of memories! When we found out earlier in the year that Aunt Nancy and Uncle Dave were selling the lake house, we couldn't really wrap our minds around it. For the most part, we lived in denial of the fact that this would be our last summer.

Fast forward to the end of June/beginning of July and we headed down for our first trip of the summer. There were lots of tears at first on my part. The reality hit and it was heartbreaking. However, the week carried on and I was able to shift my focus and just soaked it all in. We had a blast with Leah bringing her friend, Brooke and then a visit towards the end from Nyla and her two friends, Karina and Silvia. We enjoyed celebrating July 4th together and had a great time enjoying all that the lake has to offer. 

Our final trip was at the beginning of August. There were less tears on the front end this time. We jumped right into enjoying the lake and knew that we needed to make the most of every single day. Grandpa, Grandma, and TiTi joined us for a few days and we also had the Evans family down for a couple days. The week flew by and so many precious memories were made. We ended the trip by packing up a ton of stuff and helping clear things out in preparation for the move. We did leave the big boat in storage and it gave us a tiny sense of hope that maybe we will be back next summer in a rental of some sort. It won't be the same, but it'll still be my happy place! Nothing could prepare me for the final goodbyes on the last morning though. It was ROUGH and a piece of my heart is definitely down there still. We've watched the kids grow up there and we just weren't ready for this chapter to end. As Dr. Seuss once said, "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." Truer words have never been spoken!