July 18, 2015
We had quite a thunderstorm blow through last night. It woke me up with lightning, thunder, and heavy rain. In the morning, I was the last one to get up around 8:30. Everyone was already up and had eaten breakfast. Dave and Bob decided to do more fishing and get rid of their nightcrawlers. Steve and Janet took a walk. After I ate, Jean, Auggie and I took a walk a little later to check on Bob and Dave. Mary and John decided to take a bike ride to check out the nearby dam. We all arrived back at the house around the same time and had chicken tacos for lunch. Delicious!
It was a beautiful day! The weather was perfect–azure blue skies, a light breeze, and lots of sunshine!
After lunch, Mary, Jean, and I put on our swimsuits and went swimming in the lake. We chose colorful inner tubes to keep us afloat and paddled ourselves out to the raft.
We used the raft as our anchor and hung out there enjoying the sunshine. After awhile, we started to harrass the guys into coming out into the water to join us. Steve borrowed one of Bob’s swimsuits and came out with a tube. Janet forgot to bring a suit, but came out on a tube to join us in her clothes anyway.
John had a great time playing with a water gun and amusing the rest of us.
Bob and John grabbed the water guns and tried to blast us with them. The wind wasn’t co-operating and they weren’t able to reach us with their sprays. We were just too far away. We requested that a “beverage delivery” be made out to the raft, so with a lot of coaxing, Bob and John got into the paddle boat, Dave loaded the cooler with adult beverages, and the guys paddled out in the “beverage boat”. We laid in wait in the hopes of overturning the beverage boat with John and Bob in it, OR at the very least, stealing away the water guns. They were too smart for us and stayed just far enough away……UNTIL…..we swam over to where they were and grabbed the rope attached to the boat. We had them trapped. John and Bob passed out the beverages to all 5 of us while we all held onto the line. We got Bob and John to paddle around pulling the 5 of us behind them.
We had a blast just floating along!! They got quite a workout!! After about a half an hour, the guys gave up, but we continued to float around at the raft. I got Auggie to come out on the inner tube with me. He wasn’t too keen on it, but at least he didn’t claw his way out of it.
I gave him a chance to swim a little too…from about 4 feet from the shore to the platform where he could climb out. He needed a boost to get his little legs up and out of the water and he didn’t seem too upset about getting wet. We had been in the water now for more than an hour, so we decided it was time to get out. We were sufficiently “pruned”. The day was perfect and the water temp was ideal. Dave offered to take everyone on a pontoon ride to see Emma Lake. We all hopped in the boat and off we went. We crossed the lake to the other side where there was access to walk to Emma Lake. We docked the boat on the beach and crossed the isthmus that would take us to Emma Lake.
Mary stayed on the boat to keep Auggie company.
John discovered this cool tree that was still living…totally bent over, but the roots were still in the ground.
We walked to Emma Lake which had only a few homes around it. It was definitely more undeveloped that Crescent Lake.
After we looked around a little bit, we all hopped back into the boat and rode to the other side of Crescent Lake. We would make landfall on the state-owned island in the middle of the lake and look around.
Mary, Jean, and I walked halfway around the island in the water.
We all met back at the boat and headed for home. Once we got back to the dock, we unloaded the boat, put all the water toys away and relaxed a little before dinner. Steve, Janet, and I played a game of Sequence. Bob and Mary took a drive into town to fill up the truck with gas. John went on a bike ride almost all the way around the lake, and Jean did some food prep for dinner. We had brats, burgers, and pasta salad which were delicious! We all sat out on the deck to enjoy our meal together. It was another beautiful night. After dinner, the wind calmed off and the sky turned pink and blue as the sun set. Some of us sat out on the deck watching the pontoon boats parade by until the mosquitoes came out. We went inside and all eight of us played a card game called 7 Up. Mary was the lucky winner! Auggie wasn’t sure what to make of this bear statue wearing a badger “hat”.
Dave brought out the whoopie cushion and Bob and John amused us all with their antics. The cushion developed a “hemoroid” and eventually popped. Then the fun ran out!
We laughed until it was time to call it a night. We would have a busy day tomorrow packing up and heading down to Madison for a family reunion on Sunday night. What a weekend it’s been! Good times, good fun, plenty of laughter! What a great family to be a part of! Thanks to David and Jean for having us!
