Liv's On the Lake

I found this photo the other day in my desk drawer. I thought it was so funny, and couldn't believe I hadn't scanned it yet!

I don't know why she's making that face. It's funny, though!

It was taken in July 2009, while Andrew, Livie, and I were at my parents' lake house in Lake Ozark, MO. I don't remember who too the photo (it definitely wasn't me), but I think it was one of the other guests who were staying at the lake house while we were there. Livie was 3-years-old in this photo.

Memory Lane Friday - A Time You Got in Trouble

Okay, I know this week's theme is "A Time You Got in Trouble" but I'm going to go with a time my youngest brother and I could have gotten into trouble . . . if we had not been quick to hide the "evidence."

This was back a number of years, maybe late-'80s or early-'90s. We were still living in the house on Casady Drive.

 Here's the Casady house, circa early '80s:

I think I must've been getting ready to head back to college at the time this event occurred. It was the end of summer, with Labor Day fast approaching.

My parents were planning the family's last trip to the lake house in Lake Ozark, MO. However, for one reason or another, my youngest brother and I had decided that neither one of us wanted to spend another weekend at the lake house that summer. I don't really know his reason, but I think I wanted my last weekend to be at home before heading back out to college.

Anyway, my mom had no problem with my staying home, and said that if I were willing to take care of Alex, he could stay home, too. I agreed to the task.

When the 3-day-weekend finally arrived, we watched the rest of the family pull out of the driveway that Friday afternoon with excited grins on our faces.

The first thing we did was get into my car and head to the video store. As we browsed through the hundreds of VHS titles, Alex said to me, "Can I get 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show'? I've never seen it and it's not really something Mom would let me watch. Would you mind if I got it?" Keep in mind that he was in middle school at the time (I'm a number of years his senior). But being the cool sister that I am, I said, "Why the heck not?"

"The Rocky Horror Picture Show," and a couple other titles later, we headed down the strip mall's sidewalk to the Dahl's grocery store, just a few doors down from the video store. Were we getting stuff for dinner? Noooo . . . of course not! We went in and got a few pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

Once back home, we immediately went to the den to start movie night and order a pizza! Just about 30 minutes into our first movie (it may have been "Rocky Horror" or something like "Flash Gordon" - I can't remember), we got our pizza (and a couple sodas) - which we ate in the den! This is definitely something that would NOT have been allowed if our mother had been home!

Later on after our pizza started digesting during our "weird movies" movie night, we dug into the ice cream. In the den, of course!

Then after the last of our movies it was off to bed, leaving an empty pizza box, some soda cans, and an empty ice cream container (with dirty spoons) where they lay. Luckily Alex hadn't fallen asleep in the den that night - I didn't want him sleeping in there all night, and I wouldn't have been able to carry him to his room. 

The next day - that Saturday of Labor Day weekend - after sleeping in late, and leaving a mess of dirty cereal bowls in the kitchen - the two of us headed to the zoo! I don't recall whose idea it was, but it was a fun outing - until it started raining! I think we ended up heading to the Science Center for something fun indoors, but when we got there, it was closed!

Ah, well. That meant more time at the video store returning our previous rentals and getting 3 more movies. I don't remember the titles, but D.B. Sweeney, Marlee Matlin, Jeff Bridges were among the actors. I vaguely remember renting "Starman" and "The Vanishing" sometime that weekend.

Of course, that also meant more Ben & Jerry's being picked up at the grocery store before heading home, and another pizza delivery that evening. And yet another late night watching movies, and pigging out on junk food.

But this time, we piled up two day's worth of pizza boxes and ice cream containers in the kitchen before going to sleep that night.

I don't remember what we did on Sunday, but Sunday night was more of the same - movies, pizza, and ice cream. Somehow we hadn't finished watching all our rentals Sunday night before hitting the hay. But we did get a chance to clear the den of all junk food evidence. However, it was now all piled up in the kitchen . . . okay, not the soda cans, but the pizza boxes. I still can't believe we ate pizza three nights in a row.

Well, Monday arrived, and since we hadn't finished watching our videos from the night before, that's what we did - we watched the remaining movie. I think we ended up going through the drive-thru at McDonald's for lunch before settling into our comfy chairs in the den and starting the movie - with our bags of fast food in the den.

At some point, we got a call from our mom, stating that they were leaving, and what time she and the rest of the family would be back. It was sometime late afternoon or early evening - around dinner time.

No problem! Alex and I had plenty of time to finish our movie and get rid of the evidence.

That is, we thought we had enough time . . . until early that afternoon, when we were both standing in the kitchen (overlooking the driveway, garage, and extra parking area), and we saw that familiar van heading up the street, and turning into the driveway!!!

Oh, no! We both panicked! We had pizza boxes strewn about the kitchen, empty McDonald's bags from that day's lunch, dirty cereal bowls from three mornings of breakfasts, empty soda cans . . . what were we gonna do? How were we gonna explain this?!

We both grabbed a couple big garbage bags and started filling them with the trash we'd accumulated over the 3-day-weekend. Once we did that, I started quickly rinsing off the breakfast dishes and filling the dishwasher. As I did that, I sent Alex to the den to make sure we'd gotten all the trash picked up and thrown into one of the garbage bags we'd been using.

A quick look outside and we saw the rest of the family as they were getting out of the van, unloading their bags from the very back, and off the roof rack, and gathering any accumulated trash from the passenger area of the van.

Okay, a quick survey of the kitchen. Seemed clean enough . . . now what to do about the garbage bags?! The dumpster was outside near the garage . . . but we'd have to go past the family with trash bags in tow, to get to the dumpster!

I sent Alex with the trash bags to the back yard, hiding behind some shrubbery, and listening for the all clear. I went out the side door to greet the family as they came in, and I stayed out there after the last one walked in the door. Then I called to Alex and told him to hurry up and dump the trash bags into the dumpster, which he did.

Then we both went inside with angelic looks on our faces. Aside from a "you could've gotten this kitchen a little bit cleaner" from my mom, no one ever suspected that our Movie, Pizza, and Ben & Jerry's weekend was just that - a fun, movie-filled weekend with lots of junk food!

Click here for the rest of today's Memory Lane Friday posts:

Memory Lane Friday - A Crazy Weather Story

My parents have had a lake house in Lake Ozark, Missouri for a number of years now. Actually, it's been well over a decade now - ever since I was in college.

It basically just gets used during the summer months as a vacation home. My dad will head out there at the first hint of spring to "open" the house. He'll do a walk-through to ensure that all looks good with the house and do any kind of maintenance that's needed, get the boat and wave runners ready for use, that kind of thing.

Back in the day while I was still in college and my brothers in high school, summer trips to the lake house were AWESOME. These were the days when there could easily be multiple week-long trips to the lake house, anytime between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

My brothers and dad were the ones who really looked forward to these trips. They were the ones that were there at every single opportunity. They'd be out all day on the lake, with my dad manning the boat, and my brothers having fun being pulled along on tubes. Or, they'd be out on the wave runners. Those two would be out on the water practically all day. If it were raining, they'd have a bunch of videos they'd watch inside the house.

I'd try to head out there at least once a summer to spend time with them. I wasn't so much into tubing (I'd tried it a few times, but I wasn't all that thrilled with it). What I liked was riding the wave runners. And sitting in a quiet house, reading. Or heading to the outlet mall. I also liked watching movies with them (a perennial fave was "The Cutting Edge").

And on the 4th of July, everyone would go out on the lake on their boats at dusk to watch the show; a local resort would host a fireworks display over the lake, and it was SO COOL. Everyone would be there in their respective boats, having a good time, watching the fireworks while floating in the middle of the lake.

But this story is supposed to be about a crazy weather experience. And this whole lake house story was simply to set the scene.

One summer in the early '90s, I was on summer break, home from college for a couple months. My mom, brothers and I were going to head to the lake house together for the week surrounding Independence Day. My dad would be driving himself later that day due to work commitments; he wasn't able to leave with the rest of us.

So my mom, brothers, and I climbed into the van (they had one of those huge vans at the time) and off we headed. Well, at some point on our way from central Iowa to central Missouri, we passed through a thunderstorm. My mom, the driver, just plowed along in the van.

Until it happened . . . suddenly, we felt like something had jolted the van. The radio went out, the van shook, and there was a bright flash, all at the same time! The van had been hit by lightning!! Now of course, lightning isn't a laughing matter, and we were all momentarily stunned. But once we realized everyone was okay, we did start laughing, maybe because we'd been scared for a moment before realizing all was well - we were all okay . . . or maybe it was because of our mom's reaction. With one hand on the steering wheel, she took the other hand and started patting herself all over, like she'd been shot, not exactly sure what the heck happened.

My brothers and I still get a chuckle out of that memory. Laughing at the shock of it all (no pun intended) and realizing there was no damage.

However, that's not the end of the lightning!

Last summer, Andrew, Olivia, and I headed out to the lake house for the 4th of July holiday. During our visit, my dad took me, Andrew, and another family out on the boat for the annual 4th of July fireworks display. Olivia stayed at the house with my mom, reading kids' books, watching fireworks on TV, and getting a bath.

As the rest of us headed out to the designated area in the middle of the lake, we'd noticed that there were some suspiciously stormy-looking clouds over the horizon. We kept an eye on them as they crept closer, seeing lightning flickering way off in the distance. 

Then the fireworks started. But the clouds (and lightning) kept coming closer. At some point, we started wondering: was that noise from the fireworks or was it thunder? And to top it off, we realized that everyone's hair was on end, really full of static. A very good sign that we were all lightning rods. We started discussing whether we should leave right away, or wait until the fireworks were over.

And then, maybe because someone was reading our minds, or maybe due to the impending storm, the fireworks finale began. But by this time, it had started sprinkling. My dad decided to head back before the finale wrapped up, as it would take a good 10-15 minutes to get back to the house.

On the way home, it started raining harder. The next thing we knew, we were in a downpour and were getting pelted by hard rain. My dad couldn't even see past the bow of the boat, so he was heavily relying on his GPS to get us home.

Somehow we made it home safely, without an actual lightning strike. Thank goodness. What a ride!