This week started with all of us kids driving on Sunday morning to Tennessee to be with Mom and Dad for the last day of the Free the Dream Conference. We got to see a few people speak, and I got to meet some awesome people, like Anna Powers, Jevonnah Ellison, Cliff Ravenscraft (plus his family) and more! I think my favorite was Anna Powers (Although it’s super hard to pick one!). I loved her talk, and she was so nice! I also really really liked Mark Mason, and Leslie Samuels, and I guess I just liked everybody!

After the Conference was over, we ate lunch with the Ravenscraft family, and then we drove down to the lake house we had rented! We had bought inflatable kayaks, and there were a few paddle-boards at the house.

When we first went into the lake it was super shallow right by the dock and only up to our knees! So you had to go out super far to swim. We used the kayaks and paddle-boards to tip each other over and since it was shallow we could stand.

We played a game that we made up called water tag. To play, you have to have enough boats or Inflatables for everyone (you can double up but it’s harder). There is always one person on the ground trying to tip the others over. And if you tipped someone, you got that boat, and the person who was in it had to go tip another one. Since the kayaks were inflatable, they were really easy to tip over. Since I was in one of those mainly, I got tipped over quite often!

It was really fun to play, but it got old pretty fast. Since that’s what we were doing ALL DAY.

So by the second day, we wanted something new. We decided to go to the little Island that was close enough that we could see it, but far enough that we had to paddle a good amount. We all got into the paddle-boards and kayaks, but mom and dad said that they didn’t want to paddle. And since we wanted it to be a family excursion, Emery and Greyden took a rope, and attached it to their paddle-boards and then tied it to a big inflatable flamingo. So mom and dad were just sitting on the inflatable flamingo relaxing the whole time! Emery and Greyden then paddled mom and dad to the Island. When we got there we wanted to explore, but mom was worried about snakes and mosquitoes carrying diseases. So we just headed back.

We still had a lot of time, so we decided to play Watermelon Football! We always play it in the ocean, and we decided it would be a fun thing to do at the lake too. You take a watermelon, cover it with bacon grease (so that it’s hard to hold onto). And then you play football with it. It’s hard to run with it because it’s really heavy, and you’re running in water!  One of the best parts about doing it in the ocean is that when it cracks you can eat the watermelon! And it tastes really good because the salt gets in there, and then it’s salty watermelon. 🙂 But when it’s in a lake and it cracks, you might not want to eat it. 

As we were nearing the end of our vacation, we decided to make a list of all the things that we still wanted to do. One of mine was to meet Aaron Walker “Big A”. So we Facebook messaged him, and we decided to meet up for lunch. He had gone to the conference, but had had to leave before we got there on Sunday. He was super cool, and I’m so glad we went to see him!

The next day we decided to take everybody up the lake. We paddled quite a while before we found the spot Dad had chosen on the map. There was a dock there that was deep enough out that we could dive off of it catch a Frisbee as we jumped off. It ended up being about a 3-mile paddle the whole way.

On our last day, we rented a pontoon boat with a top deck and a water slide. I love the different expressions on the boy’s faces as they jumped off! We had the boat for 8 hours, and all of us loved it! Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling well that day, so I didn’t get to have as much fun in the water as everybody else. I mainly stayed on the boat. But I did get to go in the water later in the day! And it was amazing! It was pretty hot, but there was a good breeze and cool water. 

We left the lake house on Friday and got back home to the farm in time for the busy Saturday.  It was an awesome week!

Indigo