A Day at the Lake: Making memories the best way I know how

"Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it."  ~Russel Baker

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       Living in a lake town definitely has it's perks. Jackson Lake is the second reason why I wanted to move out here to Jackson, Georgia. As a teenager, my little sister, Crystal and I, practically lived at that lake one summer. I can't remember a summer before or after that one, when I was tanner! Now that I do live so close to the lake and I have 3 mermaids and 1 merman in training, there's not many days when we're not swimming it up at our favorite lake. 

       Yesterday was quite fun. My two oldest children are spending the week with their aunt, so Hannah, Adrian and I decided to take our daily dip in Jackson Lake. We were there for about 5 hours, which is a short time in comparison to our usual 8 hour lake days. We swam for what seemed like an eternity. Hannah just learned how to swim under water so that's what she's obsessed with right now. I can't swim for 5 minutes without her saying, "Mommy look at me!", and disappearing beneath the brackish water. I'm really proud of her because she's always been a little scared of the water, but now I have to practically drag her out of it when it's time to pack up. Adrian was up to his usual crazy antics, terrorizing other kids as usual. He's such a tough guy. He can make a 10 year old back down. (Adrian is 3.) He's also so awesome that the 10 year old want to play with him. He was sporting his shades yesterday.

       You may wonder why we frequent the lake so often. Well, we are a family of swimmers. Not on any teams or anything like that, but it's our family sport. It started with me and then I passed the love of the water to my kids. But that's not the only reason. My kid's think we go just to have fun and get awesome tans, but that's not it. I take them for the memories. I want my kids to have the best childhoods and so many good memories that they want to pass the same things down to their kids. I want them to look back and remember that even though we weren't rolling around in dough, we didn't need it to have a great life. I sit on the beach watching my kids having the time of their lives, and realize that this time is so valuable and precious. We only get our kids all to ourselves for a short time before the world swallows them up and takes them away. And I have realized that because I was such a young woman when I had kids, I took that time for granted a lot more than I should have. I'm really making up for lost time. And thanks to a big water filled hole in the ground, I have the perfect environment to do that. 

 ~XoXo Jess