Today, we took our LAST couple of "laps" around the lake that I remember from every Memorial Day weekend...every 4th of July weekend...and every Labor Day weekend since I was 12 years old.
SO many memories came FLOODING back this weekend...my friend Todd (since deceased) and I flopping around in a raft, using CANOE PADDLES to try to get around...Claudette and Chad joining me for a weekend (and having to "endure" me singing the entire score from "Little Shop of Horrors" on the drive from Fairfield...sorry guys!)...COUNTLESS summers where I PRAYED that John Todd WOULDN'T bring a friend, so that we could "hang out" (but he always did...)...swinging Emilie in the hammock when she was only a few months old...chatting with Toshi and using my "gaijingo" (literal translation..."foreigner language"), inserting Japanese words whenever I could remember them...swimming in the cove and trying to avoid the HUGE snapping turtle that lived there...catching ALL the frogs in the cove with only a canoe and a flashlight...staring up at the stars after dark (and before everyone put in those OBNOXIOUS yard lights)...Tena...Amy...Therese...SO many great times. I can't believe I'll never be going back there again!
OF COURSE there were "not so good times" too...the weekends where it RAINED the entire time and we had to play board game after board game after board game...or the weekends that were so hot we couldn't breathe...or the times where the boat wasn't working properly...or the time we were all out fishing on the pontoon boat when Charles got the call that Grandma Reynolds had just died...
Good times or bad...THIS WEEKEND was PERFECT. The weather was AWESOME. I couldn't believe we were in Iowa in August...low humidity...cool temperatures...absolutely AWESOME. We managed to get in LOTS of boat rides, and ate LOTS of the "standards" at the lake...Grandma Reynolds macaroni and cheese, chicken and rice, devilled eggs, cowboy beans, hunks of cheese and black olives...I miss it all already!
This morning, however, was the WORST...as we were heading up to the cars for the last time, I could NOT "pull it together". I was on the deck TRYING to get it under control to say goodbye to Doris and Charles, and just COULDN'T do it. Thank goodness Davey attempted to throw himself off the deck to make me laugh, or I'd probably STILL be sobbing.
Managed to choke out a "thanks" and "see you at Thanksgiving", and then TOTALLY lost it after we got up to the cars. Didn't help that DAD was crying...MOM was crying...ROBIN was crying....and then ABIGAIL burst into tears. Ack!
I TOTALLY understand that they needed to sell it now...Charles is in his 70's, and keeping the place going was getting harder and harder on BOTH of them, but I couldn't help thinking that the lake house was my LAST connection to my past...grandma and grandpa's house is gone, our house in Fairfield is gone, the church I grew up in has been torn down and rebuilt, yadda, yadda, yadda. I also can't help but think that the lake house was the last place that I saw Grandma Reynold's alive (and Grandpa Reynolds, for that matter...!).
Rambling...will stop now, and think of all the GREAT times we had, how MUCH I enjoyed lying in that hammock, how AMAZING those COUNTLESS laps around the lake were (one of my ALL TIME favorite places in the WORLD was on that boat, circling the lake), and how those fireworks EVERY 4th of July weekend seemed WAY brighter and more amazing, as seen from a boat anchored just off the dam at the northeast end of that FABULOUS lake!
Here are a couple of pictures from our final weekend at Sun Valley:
Duane and me on the boat!
Robin (after Emile decided it was FUN to go "outside the wake" in the tube!)
Toshi, fishing on the pontoon!
Emilie, Ashley, and Abigail!
Me in my OTHER favorite place at the lake...the hammock!!
Uncle Charles on the boat at sunset
Robin and me in the front of the boat (our favorite spot)
The lake house (as seen from the water)
A final sunset on Sun Valley LakeHope YOUR Labor Day weekend was full of "memory making" adventures as well!
No comments:
Post a Comment