Day at the Lake

Sometimes you just need to be with your family. Recharge, renew, reinvigorate. I've been heavily bribing my children to behave for the sitter and do chores by promising them a "super prize" at the end of the week.It has worked fairly well and they have done the things I've asked them to do. This week the lake was the bribe. We drove 1 1/2 hours to Lake Whitney and had a very peaceful afternoon playing in the water and exploring and skipping rocks. The water was very murky because the floor of the lake is clay. I was concerned at first about safety but I loosened up after a while. Its not my favorite place to swim but the smell of a natural body of water brought back wonderful memories of jumping off Joann's rope swing into the Guadalupe River. New Braunfels was my most favorite summer destination as a child. My grandparents had a home there and there were many opportunities growing up to swim in the river, ride bikes along the cattle ranch and one summer a boy in the neighborhood had a go cart (that I almost wrecked). The river was almost always cold and felt so good to swim in and float out in the middle. As I was floating in the lake with Abby on my lap yesterday I thought about how much I want my kids to experience and enjoy in the world. Much of that comes from my own memories of being part of a family and having friends in my siblings. The cool thing about that is we have the ability to create those memories, they don't just come. We choose to make opportunities for our children to bond, grow and explore. Dave and I talked a lot about places we want to take them, things we want to expose them to. As Abby gets older my imagination gets bigger. In the coming years, hopefully my children will have many memories to be a blessing to them when they are my age.