The Lake House (aka, why I shouldn't go to silent auctions)

Last spring, as in 2011, Nick's preschool put on a carnival that featured a silent auction as a fund raiser. Not really planning to spend any money, I nonchalantly walked around looking at the bid items, until something caught my eye: a weekend at a lake house about an hour and a half from us. Considering that my family pretty much only goes on vacation to visit extended family, I thought this sounded ideal. A little trip away on our own, a grand farewell to our time in PA. So I bid on it. My first bid ever on, well, anything. And then it was like I became possessed by bidding demons. I wanted to win this weekend away! I needed to win! I had to win! It came down to the wire and I WON! And then I was acutely banned from ever participating in a silent auction again by the CFO of the Goldie family, Brad Goldie. But to the Lake House we went!!

We had a hard time finding a time to go because Brad was traveling so much for job interviews, and then there was that whole problem of, well, winter. But we finally pinned down a time. It was the weekend after Brad's defense dissertation in May and about 6 weeks before our move, so it was great timing for us. By this point in time we were pretty much attached-at-the-hip to the Smith's, so of course they came with us, which made it even better.

 

 

There was a club house

 

And a play ground

 

And boats

 

And spring was budding

 And I'm pretty sure we were all about this happy to be spending a weekend in the same house together!

 

                                              For some reason the stairs were a big hit

 

 Owen (age 2) kept making sure that Chase was his friend ("you're my friend, right Chase?")

 But there was never any doubt that these 2 boys are...

And we're friends, too. Even though after I took this picture I showed it to Brad and commented that we look old and tired and his reply was "well, we are old and tired."

 The next day we spent some time on the playground...

 And by the lake

 

Then we did some fishing

 

Cora watched for about 30 seconds before she decided she preferred a more participatory role

  Jessica ended up helping her, but when she was left to her own devices again...

 this is what happened

 

After Brad fished the thrown dropped pole out of the lake, I was forced to ban Cora from fishing until further notice. She did not take kindly to the news.

 

But don't worry, we made up

  We also found entertainment in worms

 And walking on the long white bench

 And admiring Cora's shoes

 And hanging out with our kids

 And water guns

 And throwing rocks

 Oh, and the boats! We took a long boat ride.

 Which Cora enjoyed for about 2 minutes until I wouldn't let her take her life jacket off

 But the Smith's had fun

 We also took full advantage of the swing set

 And went on a wagon ride

 And skipped rocks off the dam

 And fed Nick's current fetish of rock/paper/scissors

 

On our last day the kids asked if they could "put their feet in" at the lake. You can guess what that turned into.

 Pretty soon the clothes came off.

 And Cora tried to swipe Lorraine's flip flops

 But don't worry we didn't let her

 These two "babies" are 15 MONTHS apart! Cora is so tall for her age.

 It's okay, I can empathize.

 Lorraine is Chase's best friend. He's turned into a home-body and usually the only time he gets excited to go anywhere is if Lorraine is going to be there.

 After immersing themselves in the cold lake water, the kids warmed themselves up on the hot sand.

 And then played " 3 (or 4) Billy Goats Gruff" with Jess.

 We had such a great weekend in beautiful central PA with our favorite people! And I am happy to report that I have stayed away from silent auctions since then (although this turned out so well I'm definitely considering falling off the band wagon).