The Perfect Storm

Today started out with beautiful weather, just perfect for our fun day planned with friends and family on the lake.  We had our good friends Jake and Micki over with their niece Peja, Elias, Lex and the kids, Zeb, Aaron and Angie.  When everyone got to the house, we sat around outside enjoying the weather, until we decided to boat over to Irish lake to anchor down and swim.  When we got everyone loaded on the boat, it had trouble starting...the first time all year.  We sat at the pier for a few minutes and then it started right up.  Even though the sky was looking a little dark in the distance, we decided to head out, which would prove to be a huge mistake.  We only got to swim on Irish for a few minutes before Austin saw lightening in the sky and ordered us all in.  There were still lots of boats on the lake so everything seemed okay, despite the darkening sky, except that the boat wouldn't start.  As we sat there waiting on it to "rest", the sky got darker and darker, soon the waves were white capping and slamming the boat around pretty violently.  When we looked around, all of the boats had left except for one a short distance away.  As the weather worsened, we knew we were in trouble, and the boat still wouldn't start.  We yelled for the last remaining boat in our sight, with no avail.  We yelled again in unison and they finally heard us, just as they were getting ready to drive away.  The boat drove over, we tied on and they began to tow us home.  The rain was pretty heavy at this point, and the kids were starting to get scared, cold and wet.  As the boat towed us around the channel, it started to spit pea sized hail.  Who knew hail would hurt that bad?  Just as the good Samaritans pulled us into our dock, the neighbor men came running out to help get our boat tied down and get the kids in the house.  The good Samaritans drove off with just a wave of the hand.  We didn't get to say thank you, and who knows how far they had to travel in the fierce weather to get home.  Once inside we all dried off, changed our clothes and joked about how we had survived "the perfect storm". 

We are survivors!

...and we all looked a little wet!

The guys laughing at the radar and how crazy it was that we were all out in that!

As you can see, the kids survived with no trauma!

We were supposed to grill out, but we decided to order pizza instead.

As we were eating, I looked out and saw that the boat had come untied.  Austin went out to retrieve it with the help of our neighbor.

When the weather let up, Lex and Micki went outside to gather up all of our belongings left on the boat during the storm.

...and as you can see, little Miss Hadley was not bothered at all by the storm!

The weather cleared up again for the remainder of the night.  A group of people were having a large party with a DJ across the lake.  We all sat outside, enjoyed the music and watched the hour long fireworks show.  Despite the storm, we had a great day hanging out and enjoying the pre-fourth of July celebration!