What a Week

We just got back home from a week down at Smith Mountain Lake and I'm trying to get mentally prepared to go back to work. I have today off, but luckily my boss called me at home today to help with that transition.

We had such a great vacation -- great weather, fun people, and lots of good food and laughter. Ali's parents hosted us, as well as 40 other people including most of Ali's family, half of Patrick's (husband of Ali's sister, Deni) family from Ireland, and my parents. We had met Patrick's family over in Ireland when he and Deni got married in 2005, but it was fun to get to know everyone a little better.

We had a first-rate fireworks show on the 4th, which Jake was about 40 percent impressed with and 60 percent scared of. He kept asking, "fireworks all done?" But the answer was always "no" since the show went on for about 45 minutes and finally Jake changed his question to "Night-nights?"

Besides the fireworks and party on the 4th, we had fun kayaking, water skiing, tubing behind the speedboat, JetSkiing, wakeboarding, hiking, geocaching, playing Bocce Ball, and relaxing a bit too. And, after several days of playing around in the shallow end of the lake, Jake finally worked up the courage to "swim" a little bit! He had his lifejacket on, but he was kicking and paddling between us and giggling and screaming "Jake Swimming!!"

It was a great week overall, but here are a few more highlights:

• Arjuna calling Sadie "Baby Shady"
• The rental guy saying he'd never seen that type of Seadoo flipped before
• Jake drinking three bowls of miso soup at the Hibachi grill
• To the barkeep at the Kings Point Pub: "I'll need 20 pints of Guinness, please"
• Patrick trying to teach Jake the Irish phrase, "How's she cuttin'" (equivalent to "How's it going"), and Jake responding, "No. Patrick's Cutting."
• Various versions of the American's trying to say "Jaysus Mary and Joseph!"
• Jake learning to SWIM!
  

Check out pictures by clicking here or the link to the right.

Sláinte!