Are We There Yet?

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Sunday morning early...
Well the day has finally arrived.   We are heading to the lake for our annual weeklong family vacation! So I will be going off the grid! Wait… what??? Haha!  Who are we kidding? I never go off the grid! I will be blowing up your Facebook and Instagram news feeds for the next week with pictures of my punkins and the rest of the family doing what we do best... enjoying each other's company, Kayaking, fishing, swimming, eating...ok, ok, you get the drift!
As I sit here preparing to pack the car with the hundreds (it seems like) bags of food, sheets, air mattresses, fishing gear, etc, I reflect on past Lake vacations and what fun we have had! 
It seems each year we have a first, and this year is no exception. Ryan's friend Hillary will be joining us for 2 days this year. And this year Angie will be with us for a second year, but this year as Jeremy's wife, not fiance! She is definitely a Boothe now, and we love her so much!

Sunday morning, 10AM...
So the spreadsheet is done, the car is now packed, and there's only the dreaded drive ahead of us.   We are in a different house again this year, as we can't seem to find that perfect house to rent year after year as we did the 1st 16 years of our Lake Anna vacations.   This year's house is smaller than last year but the dock has an incredible screened in room where we will be able to spend even more time on the water and not be in the direct sun all day.  Emily and I have already decided there will be more early morning kayaking this year to watch the sunrise over the Lake. And the fishing is always so much fun early in the morning.  So the anticipation is building....

Friday morning 6:30AM...
I'm sitting here on the screened in porch, waiting for the rain to end so I can run and then kayak when Emily wakes up.  It's a small cell, so supposed to be out of here by 7:15.  As I sit here reflecting on our week so far, I smile to myself.   It's been a crazy, wild ride so far!  The Punkins are playing so hard they fall exhausted into bed every night.   The adults can't wait to go to bed every night...we are sooo tired every night.  Almost all of us have been kayaking, most everyone is fishing at some point, and of course swimming is a nonstop activity!
The food has been incredible thanks to everyone.   We ALL love to cook, so everyone takes a turn!  But last night I told the crew they were on their own for breakfast, and they all started to freak out.  Spoiled much? 

Music is always on, using a 9 hour playlist made up of songs suggested by everyone.  We even have one song that won't stop playing, even after being removed from my phone and the playlist.   It's Jeremy's pick, and as soon as he left to go home, it started doing this, so pretty sure he is sabotaging our music from afar! 🤣  Thanks Jer!
We've had slumber parties every night with the house being smaller than we really need it to be.  But seeing those kiddos fast asleep in the morning after hearing all the giggles at night, my heart is full.

Emily and I have kayaked early to watch the sun rise, and Brandon and Pop have been fishing early morning and watched our resident eagle soaring above.  These are memories in the making.
So, the size of the house, the dock, or anything else is not really that important! Any of us will gladly sleep on air mattresses just to be together for a week!  You see, we don't go to the lake to sleep late or to go sightseeing,  or out to eat.  We go to bond, to be a family,  to celebrate this thing called life in the only way us Boothes know to do it.   We work hard all year, and we play hard for this one tiny week.  1/52 of a year.   We cook, we swim, we fish, we kayak, we sing, we pray, we dance, and we laugh.  Oh my do we laugh!  Because my friends, life is to be lived.  Family is precious.   And we believe we do it just right this one week each year.

Quod Ero Spero...the Boothe motto

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