Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Weekend Catch-up: Kayaking & a Family Picnic

On Saturday, my whole family met up to go kayaking. We went to a park about 45 minutes from my house, and I had never been there. Well let me tell you, I'll definitely be going back! It's also very dog friendly so that earns it about a million bonus points in my book which means Layla will joining me on my next trip.

Our reservations were at 10am then after kayaking my grandma and grandpa had rented a little pavilion for a picnic! I thought it was just going to be all who went kayaking but tons of people ended up meeting us there, and it all turned in to basically a mini family reunion. That's the way things work in my family- we never know who is going to show up, what's going on, half the time we forget we're supposed to be somewhere, we're terrible at keeping one another in the loop, but if there's food people will come. The only way to describe our family dynamic is organized chaos. So it's always like a fun surprise when people just start showing up!


I didn't take my phone out on the lake for obvious reasons so I don't have any pictures from the kayaking part but I was surprised at the number of people who had their phones out there and taking tons of pictures. They're a lot braver than me because my luck I would've capsized the boat and then it'd be bye-bye new iPhone 6.


So I took all these pictures as we drove over to meet everyone for lunch! It was honestly the perfect day. The weekend overall was amazing because we finally got a break from the scorching hot temperatures. It was probably upper 70s to low 80s but with plenty of clouds for shade and a breeze. 


Kayaking was a lot of fun! We rented 6 tandem ones for the 12 of us. Amanda was my kayak buddy and I made her sit in the back. The guy who was helping everyone get in the kayaks said the strong person goes in the back and the pretty one goes up front haha! I told Amanda if this had required leg strength then we would have switched roles. One of these days I'm hoping my upper body strength will catch up! 


We had the kayaks for an hour so we went all over the lake. The lake itself was an L shape with a little island at one end and a bridge at the other so we went all the way down then did a loop around the island before heading back. Amanda and I would paddle for a bit then drift as we tried to get our tan on. I was the best navigator ever lololol not really Amanda kept yelling at me. Every time she would tell me to be in sync with her paddling, I would start belting 'N Sync at the top of my voice because why not? I also sang Rolling Down the River and Just Around the Riverbend from Pocahontas. 

Yes there were about 20 other kayaks out on the lake. No, I did not know them, and no, I did not care that they heard me haha! Kayaking calls for kayaking themed music! 




My cousins Ben and Jake were teasing me for taking all the pictures since it was so pretty. Then I started taking pictures of them at random, and they didn't think it was as funny anymore ;) 




Just to annoy Jake hehe, I took this picture before he was ready since he had been shoving his face with food. His face says it all haha! He can never stay mad at me though. 


We ended up staying most of the afternoon just catching up and eating plenty of food! My grandma was such a nervous wreck worrying if there would be enough food, and we kept teasing her telling her that the six bins and coolers clearly wouldn't feed us all! Side note: that is complete sarcasm. She seriously brought enough food for about a week. There was probably a total of about 30 of us at one point because like I said, my grandma and grandpa pretty much told everyone they knew about it! It was a blast and such a joy to see how happy it made my grandma. I know I've talked about it before but she was diagnosed with leukemia earlier this year so it's always a blessing when the family can get together like this and spend time with one another!

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