lake murray

it seems like forever since i've blogged! time to catch up again!

we just spent the last 3 days at lake murray, oklahoma with our friends matt, judy, katelynn and courtney. we had such a good time, and {surprisingly} made it home with no major injuries!

while matt and judy stayed in their camper, we got this happy little cabin up by the lodge. i was honestly expecting it to be nasty, but it wasn't bad at all! it had lots of windows so there was plenty of sunshine to wake us up early in the morning!

we didn't do much sunday. we bought our groceries at the ardmore wal-mart, ate some mexican food at el tapatio {yummers} and then hung out at the harrell's camper. we played FarklE by firelight and snacked on s'mors {double yummers......} "everything is better in nature," right, matt?

photo of the day #185

s'mors

monday we rented an island cruiser that was powered by a wave-runner. talk about fun!!! this was a first for me. i must admit that i was quite scared to ride the wave-runner. {i just kept having flashbacks to the time i went rafting down the colorado river when i was pregnant with spencer. i was ejected from the boat and landed on rocks! it was not a happy experience.}

daryl and i were the first ones to test out the wave-runner. i was the passenger, and he was the driver. he didn't really know what he was doing, so he kept stopping and we'd start tipping forward!!! i just knew we were going to fall off that thing in the middle of the lake and there was no way i'd be able to hoist myself back up! thankfully, though, he got me back safely to the cruiser. i decided it was much happier on the boat than on the wave-runner with him.

photo of the day #186

riding the waves

the boys {mine and judy's} LOVED the wave-runner! they took turns for the next 3 hours riding that thing all over the lake! judy and i were content to hang out on the boat and jump in the lake when we needed to cool off. but later on daryl asked me to ride with him again. he promised it wouldn't be scary this time because he figured out how to drive it correctly. i was really hesitant to get back on, but how could i resist that cute face? {and he was right. it wasn't near as bad as the first time he took me out!!}

on the way back to the marina to return the boat, we had a minor incident. matt was driving the boat, and spencer and daryl were sitting at the front dangling their feet in the water. since the boat is powered by a wave-runner the top speed is 4 mph. judy and i were up on the top deck when i heard matt yell, "get the camera!" i thought he was shouting that because there was something cool to take a picture of. then i heard someone hollering about losing shoes! when i looked over the edge i saw my flip-flops floating out to sea and half of the bottom deck was under water!!!! no one really knows what happened, but all i know is that my camera ended up in the water on the floor of the boat!!! ugh......... {luckily there was no permanent damage done. i guess the camera needed a day to dry out and get over the trauma because it started working yesterday afternoon!}

that night we played more FarklE and ate some more s'mors!!!

tuesday we headed north to turner falls.

{photo by matt}

it had been years since i had been there, so i didn't remember very much. i definitely didn't remember how incredibly cold the water is there!!!! matt took the kids to climb up the falls while judy and i nervously watched.

then for some strange {and stupid} reason judy and i decided to take the kids up to the castle that's built into the side of the 'mountain'. now i know you're thinking, "what kind of mountain could there be in oklahoma?" but trust me...........this castle was way up there! we had to climb a gazillion steps to get to the top! even colby got so tired on the way down that he sat down on the steps to rest!!! {my knee and calves are still sore today! i'm old!}

finally we found a happy spot at the blue hole pool. this is a place where the falls end up. it is a big natural swimming hole. there was a gigantic slide and diving board which spencer loved, but i found a better place up in the shallow water where the water just flowed over me while i sunned myself on a rock like a turtle! ahhhhhhh......

after dinner that night we went to the dock to do some fishing. actually matt and the kids fished while judy and i just sat on the dock and talked.

daryl discovered the game bookworm on his phone so he spent the fishing time playing that! we all enjoy nature in different ways, i guess!

this one little spot had so many things to take pictures of.........heaven!

i love this picture of courtney and colby! they were stuffing things in a "snake hole."

as judy and i were sitting on the dock, i was taking random pictures of the area around us. this next picture is so cool! i had my head turned as i took the picture, so i didn't see the fish jump. i heard the splash and wondered if i had happened to capture the creature that made the noise on camera. and sure enough, i did!!!! what a fluke!

photo of the day #187

fish out of water!

after fishing it was back to the harrells' for bananagrams and s'mors! {are you seeing a pattern of our evening activities?}

today was our last day together. we spent it at the beach by the marina. i have to confess that i wasn't exactly thrilled about the thought of swimming in a lake because i always pictured lake water being brown and nasty. but lake murray TOTALLY changed my way of thinking! the water was clean, clear and just the right temperature. we're already talking about going back again next year!

photo of the day #188

searching for seashells

{picture taken by daryl}

unfortunately, i got a little too much sun today so i am glowing!

quote of the day: "NO WAKE!" ~Matt and Daryl {inside joke}