Lake-o-rama

Time flies when you are having fun. Last Tuesday we packed the van up to the gills and headed south to Beaver Lake, just east of Rogers, Arkansas. Yes, Arkansas. It is a cultural adventure but worth it for the scenery alone - the lake was beautiful. We stayed in a large house on a cove near Lost Bridge Marina & camping area. It was on the quiet side of the lake - almost exactly halfway between Rogers & Eureka Springs. Great spot for those who are more interested in nature and water vs. than nightlife/lots of people. Anyway, our house was pretty nice and plenty big for my brother's family of 8 and us...that is except for the fact that it didn't have working smoke detectors (we discovered this the first night when I went to preheat the oven & accidently started a grease fire inside it!) and the seemingly less strict building codes for decks (the rails were about 8 in apart - plenty wide for Luke to walk through face first...off into the treed abyss!). Good thing we 'cleaned' the oven the first night...and the sliding glass doors were heavy enough that Luke couldn't let himself outside to check out the deck without help. We adjusted just fine.

Of course, the main focus of the week was not the house but the water. Beaver Lake is a Corps of Engineers lake - deep and very clear, so much so that it is popular for scuba divers! Houses 'on' the lake tend to be set pretty far back up in the trees, and only some of them have docks (not ours - we tied up in the cove each evening and waded out to the boat). It wasn't crowded at all, esp where we were, so the boat was busy pretty much all day every day pulling our crowd of wakeboarders, tubers, and our new toy - the wake skate.

The wake-skate is like a wakeboard but without bindings (things to hold your feet on). Daniel took right to it ...as you can see below...he even pulled off a 'push-shove-it' trick before anyone else, which was a really cool thing for him (hard to be the 'first' on anything with two older brothers).

Everyone else got lots of 'air' as they attempted their stunts...the older ones (John & David) would limp slowly back to the house and down a couple Advil between runs so they could keep going despite their bad knees. Kelly & I took the kids to the swimming areas, fished, went along on boat rides occasionally, and generally held down the house with Luke & whoever was taking a break from the water. Unfortunately, Josh came down with a mysterious fever on day 2 so he hung out with us quite a bit. He was an awfully good sport though.

When we tired of boating, we headed out for grocery (and boat) shopping...and one day we headed over to Eureka Springs to explore. The adults could have spent more time there but the boys quickly tired of art galleries and gift shops, although they liked the leather/biker stores and thought the hippies in Basin Park were pretty interesting!

Our last day we rented a pontoon boat so that everyone could be on the water at once. We loaded Josh up with Advil and he stayed in the shade and drove to all the cool swimming spots for us, while John and David took the rest of the crowd out on the faster boat. We had a ball, as you can see from the expression on Luke's face!!

We headed back for our respective homes Sunday morning. Though the Evans clan didn't get very far - we made what I thought would be a quick stop at a boat dealer in Rogers that led to us eating lunch at the marina there (a really yummy, casual diner-style place on the water we would highly recommend) and taking a very nice Malibu wake-setter boat out for a test drive. It was really fun actually - although I am now worried Michael aspires to be a boat dealer since his perception is the job is mostly entertaining people with deep pockets by driving very cool boats around the lake (and of course getting noticed by girls in bikinis in the process). He might not be that far off base, but if it was THAT good, wouldn't we all be doing it??

All in all a terrific family vacation. Now it's time to get back to real life!

ready, set, GO!

We've been pretty hot and pretty busy since I last wrote. Our weekend was filled with sports, a birthday, and a visit from Grandma Jeanne. Michael's team participated in their first college showcase tournament in what felt like the saraha desert in western KC. It was HOT out on the fields on Sunday, but they hung in there. Meanwhile, Josh's basketball team played their last game of the season (indoors, thankfully) and we also celebrated his 14th birthday. He got lots of cool stuff - wrenches, gift cards to his favorite stores (Dicks, AE), new dirtbike gloves, a holder for his fancy sunglasses, and perhaps most treasured his own CELL PHONE. He was pretty psyched...

Today we are loading up the van and heading south - it's vacation time! Beaver Lake, Arkansas is beckoning us & our crazy lake-loving Mayden cousins for five days of hard-core wakeboarding/tubing/lake fun. We've not been to this lake before and are excited to see what adventures it holds - it LOOKS cool. The weather on the other hand, looks hot! Great weather for boating...not so great for Uncle John as it means leaving his corn when it is most vulnerable. We are crossing our fingers that he gets to stay the whole time. More to follow as the week progresses!

Getting Away

David and I went to London in May. I am writing about this now because I am fantasizing that we are back there. I probably didn't appreciate it as much as I should have then because our getaway was at the end of a 10 day business trip and I really have about 5 days of away in me before I start to get tired of living out of a suitcase and miss my home and kids. But we had a great time regardless so now I am reliving it through pictures and memories. David probably doesn't have good memories of the arrival since it took him about 24 hours instead of 12 and he had to sleep in O'Hare with the rest of the unlucky travelers who got stuck when the weather turned bad. I, on the otherhand, was blissfully unaware of his plight - I slept, worked a full, final day in the office and then joined good friends for dinner at a fabulous Moroccan restaurant in Notting Hill. Our dinner finished in time for us to walk briskly back to the 'tube' (walking is no big deal in London - everyone does lots of it - and it is often brisk because the weather is sort of Seattle-like). It wasn't too much later that David arrived (only 12 hours late).

We visited the Roman city of Bath on our first day together, which you will see in the pictures. It is only about a 90min? train ride from London and it was great to see the countryside. Going out was better than coming back - it is the same train that eventually ends up in Brighton and I think there were quite a few revelers coming back from the beach. That and the train before had been cancelled. Ask David about the Brit who had a 'reserved' seat! Anyway, Bath is built of native limestone and has many beautiful buildings as well as the well-preserved, ancient site of the Roman Baths. The history is truly amazing. Perhaps more amazing to David than I - I tended to enjoy it with my eyes, listen to a stop or two on the audio tour, then move on. Not Dave though. He listens to EVERY audio stop IN ITS ENTIRETY. And takes pictures. I had to go back in and get him - I had a bad headache and really, how much more was there to see of 2000-yr-old stone.

We also enjoyed the BIG BUS tour in London as well as the National Gallery and the fabulous musical 'Wicked'. That was my favorite part, and pure genius on David's part as we went the last evening when I typically am a major grouch since I already anticipating being home and mad we aren't there yet. He surprised me by purchasing the tickets when I thought he really hopped off the bus to go to the Rolls Royce and Bentley dealerships to take yet more pictures of cars we will never be able to afford to purchase (and would never drive on our gravel lane anyway).

A trip to remember...

4th of July Vacation Day 3

the weather looks to be hot, hot, hot today...more typical summer than we have been having. I've been playing 'I spy' with my niece Macy while simultaneously trying to scan the weekend Journal. The article 'Giving Till It Hurts' caught my eye and has made me rethink the endless list of 'needs' the boys keep plying David and I with...a new boat, barn, lake house, dirt bike, etc etc. When all that really seems to be required is the company of other kids, space to run and decent weather. Adults are not so different.

Baby Mark is growing and soon will be out of the precious almost-always-sleeping baby stage. It is fun to hold him but be able to give him back for the sleepless night part!

We are working on adding short videos to our blog. That way all can enjoy the pictures of Michael doing his 'tantrum' (aka back flip) on his wakeboard and crashing into the water. Yesterday the dads took all the kids out to the lake on two boats - our current old one and the previous really old one (which was handed down from Kelly's ultra-hip grandma, who last I knew was still water-skiing at age 75)! Cale insisted upon resurrecting the really old boat after finding it deep in the recesses of John's garage. So my brother, being the softie he is, towed it into town, powerwashed it, and prepared it for a rebirth on Milford Lake. We were all a bit skeptical - although it looked darn good - we remembered having to bail it out after each ski run last time we had it at the lake. As it turned out, the leaky hull wasn't as big a problem as the engine that kept running hot. John, with his share of the 8 kids, would run it for a few minutes and then have to cut the engine and float and wait until it cooled off. No big deal for a content lake floater like me but it seemed to try his patience a bit. After a big, post-lake family dinner at the local Pizza Hut last night he towed it straight to the boat repair shop for an overhaul. Perhaps it should really go to the final resting place for boats though...or be converted to a pontoon with sails!

Today we will visit the farm, retrieve our boys, and cram ourselves back into the truck for our drive back to KC...with another year's worth of 4th of July antics to laugh about and discuss!

First Things First

Keeping up with three boys has always been challenging. Now they are technologically ahead of me too...scary, since I always thought I was pretty tech-savvy working in IT. So I'm trying the blog thing. Seems like a good way to keep in touch with folks spread far and wide who might like a peek into our lives now and then. I'm all for the creative aspect but regular journaling scares me a bit. I plan to recruit some help! We'll see how it goes.

Today is the 4th of July. As seems to be more and more the case, Michael is off with friends at their lake house leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves. We will shop for fireworks, swim, and watch the Vittoria's fireworks extravaganza from the Richards driveway tonight...maybe make a blueberry pie too (that would be me, not we). Then tomorrow we'll go pick up Michael and tow the boat back to Abilene for some holiday fun with all the cousins at Nanny's house.

There are 16 cousins now on the Mayden side: Michael (16), Riley (14), Josh (almost 14), Logan (13), Nolan (11), Daniel (11), Cale (9), Anna (7), Quincy (7), Beth (5), Mitch (4), Nick (3), Macy (almost 3), Megan (2), Luke (1), Mark (almost 1 month). I'm sure I got somebody's age wrong but I think the order is right! They have a great time together but it is total CHAOS. We will miss having Bunka with us...he always enjoyed the fireworks as much or more than the kids.

We are grateful for our freedom more than ever this year, and for those who sacrificed for it. Happy 4th of July!