Today we finished listening to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. We bought it in South Carolina to entertain us on our drive up the Outer Banks (the barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina where Kitty Hawk is) but we didn't finish them before we had to turn back in our rental car. That is a great way to make time pass in a car! Now I'm wanting to get all sorts of audio books. Unfortunately, I don't have a functioning tape player let alone CD player in my car so I'm outta luck on that front.

Did I mention the million-dollar lakehouse on Lake Anna in Virginia that we visited with friends? As I recall, my last entry was right before we went there. Well this is some kind of amazing house. It is about 6000 sq. feet and has 6 bedrooms. It sleeps 27 in those 6 bedrooms. One room is about 25' x 15' and has 4 sets of bunkbeds. The beds have a twin on top and a queen on the bottom so the room sleeps 12. The hardwood floors are finished to a 'nautical' finish which means they had an almost mirror finish to them. The kitchen had 2 refrigerators in it and one of the freezers was dubbed the Popsicle Freezer because it was completely full of Otter Pops. Joey liked that freezer best. It is 3 full levels. The middle floor is where the kitchen was. Off the kitchen there was a nook that seated 10, then next to that was a screen porch with 2 sets of deck tables and chairs. Next to the screen porch is the dining room with a big long table that seats 12. Beyond the screen porch there is was a big deck with 2 picnic tables on it and lots of room for more. You could easily seat 40 or 50 people for dinner at the various tables. The weekend after we were there, Senator Flake from Arizona and his family stayed at that beach house with the family.

I loved the lake toys, too--the two Polaris jetskis, the speed boat and the pontoon boat that had seats for 20. One day we packed up the pontoon "party barge" with a picnic lunch and beached ourselves on an island where we ate lunch and then jumped off the boat for some swimming time. The water in the lake was 82 degrees while we were there. That's a very nice temperature for swimming if you ask me. :-)

In the early evenings as people were leaving the lake, the surface was like glass. It was the perfect time for us to go waterskiing and jetskiing. One of the days we were there, we had an afternoon thunderstorm. After the storm, the lake was again like glass with wispy tendrils of steam rising up from the water. I took the opportunity to drive around the lake on a jetski. It was really incredible. The maximum speed on the jetski is 75 mph but I only got it up to 65. Man, was that a rush! Just me on a long skinny stretch of lake between two large areas going full throttle over the glassy surface, my bright orange hair flying behind me like flames.

I took a few of the kids on rides with me but kept the speeds considerably lower. At one point, I was riding right into the sunset with my daughter. The sun glinted off the water and we followed its trail for a long way. Ahead of us, we saw large-mouth bass jumping and creating concentric ripples that pulsed outward toward us.

The children swam and played in the water all day and even at night (under very close supervision, of course), pausing only to eat and get sunscreen. One evening we went nightswimming to the music of crickets and cicadas. I wanted to go skinny dipping but couldn't get my beloved to join me. Not that being wet and naked didn't appeal to him. ;-) He just didn't feel comfortable with the vulnerability aspect of being naked in a potentially public place.

I wish we could have spent a week there--it was so warm and wonderful and peaceful and fun. And the company couldn't be beat. There is nothing like spending time with old friends--friends who have known you for a decade or more. Ed and Val have known each other for 24 years now and I've known Val and DeeAnn for 16 and 15 years respectively, almost half my life. There are precious few people I've known and kept in contact for that long. There is so much shared history--many many trips to Val's family cabin in Sun Valley, shared vacations, visits to each other's homes, years of saved letters and emails, confidences and regrets and apologies and still so much love and admiration. When we visit them, it's like we never left. We can practically continue the same conversation we left off on. Friends like that are hard to come by and must be savored and preserved. Visits like this one go a long way toward keeping that friendship vital and alive.

--L