36 Hours of Awesome

I can't believe I haven't told you about this!!!

Okay, so Monday was Saffire Cleaning Day. Which meant I had to be at work at 10am. That, combined with the fact that last weekend there was a Grace Chapel Baptism Bash, and that I'd been thinking about getting some writing done, persuaded me to relinquish the idea of a day trip and stay in Franklin rather than drive all the way up to Mt. Juliet to spend Sunday at the lakehouse.

(Backstory: Swanny's friends with a lady who lets him stay at her beautiful Real World-esque lake house, and use her beautiful speedboats and water toys, so long as he cleans it all up for her. Last weekend, we found out about 4pm on Saturday afternoon that we were invited to come up and play.)

But then, I realized that there's one more Baptism Bash to go before summer ends. And then Jared and Handsome Rob hand delivered our "new" washer and dryer, which crossed one more thing off my list, and then Jared also decided to go to the lakehouse. That made the lakehouse roster Swanny, Matty, Jake, Jared, Holla & Kish. So, seeing as how 2/3rds of T3 does not a Trizzo make, and feeling as though I would probably miss out by staying home, I packed two days worth of summer clothes in about fifteen minutes, left my stuff with my roommates, and headed to work. Then, following a less than profitable Saturday night at the 'Fire, I jumped in my car and traveled a little less than an hour North to the lake house.

It turned into the best 36 hours of-- probably the whole summer.

I got there and everyone was hanging out on the upper deck, above the boats. Kish & Matt were talking in the grass, so I climbed the scary spiral staircase (which I later learned was covered in massive spiders. It's amazing what you'll do when you don't know what you're doing.) And listened to Jake play guitar and watched Holly jump off the deck into the dark lake.

After an hour, we went back to the house so Jake & I could change into swimsuits. From there, we jumped into the Jacuzzi, where epic shenanigans ensued for about the next three hours. It was amazing and absolutely hilarious. Truth or Dare just never gets old.

Later that night, the boys suffered through Jammin In Jamaica, Matty & Jake left to head back to Franklintown, and Holly and I launched into another full fledged wrestling match with the Crocodile Hunter that left us-- marked, to say the least. I still have some bruises. He's feisty, that one is. Holla & I have learned our lesson 2 or 3 times over now, but we're just too stubborn to admit defeat. Me, Kish & Holla went to bed around 5:30 am, and woke up the next morning to Swanny jumping on our bed singing about flying carpets and whole new worlds. And bless his heart, he's one of my favorite people in the world, but don't look for him on The Singing Bee anytime soon. ;)

We all got up, got dressed, ate Lucky Charms and headed out to the boat where we spent the next two hours flying across the lake. It was one of the best moments of my life. It was magical. I could not pry myself off the nose of the boat. Later, under pressure of being thrown in if we dared refuse, we jumped in and swam in the delightful murky fish water. And on the way home, I let the wind blow dry my hair and it was all halfro and fabulous.

Came back to dock, since we were nearly out of gas, and made burgers for lunch. Jared's grill skills are impeccable. We tore those things up! Jared and Kish took powernaps while Holly and I went on an *adventure to round up more gasoline. After a few hours passed, we loaded up the boats again and headed back out to a spot called Two Foot Cove. Upon finding it, we cranked up Luna Halo, dropped anchor, jumped out and wandered through the crowd of Weekend Warriors, hoping to start a volleyball game on the court set up in the center of the cove. We did start a game, and we won! :) Jared,-- excuse me, Liam Westerbridge-- pretended to be his British alter-ego and we acquired Jello shots from a neighboring boater who was happy that Kish & I were representin the black population at the lake. :) Then we got back in the boat, sped across the lake and got ready for dinner.

While waiting on Jared to grill the steaks, we watched Big Brother and I played with the beautiful lab puppy from next door. Then I drank my very first Red Stripe (Hooray Beer!) and ate the best steak I've had in a long time. Holy cow, it was amazing. Mmmm!

We cleaned up from dinner, grabbed ice cream and fireworks and headed out to the dock to shoot them off. After almost blowing ourselves up/setting things on fire, we walked back to the boat dock where we all jumped in and cruised out to the center of the lake. We sat there until the water turned to glass and the stars glowed bright. Lightning 100 provided the background soundtrack as we told stories, answered questions and began to think for the first time about how much we're going to miss Swanny in about a month.

Pulling back into port, we bid the boat farewell, showered and said goodbye to Jared. Then we all fell asleep in Swanny's giant bed watching tv until someone woke up and made everyone go brush their teeth and go to bed for real.

Next morning, Kish & I headed back to Franktown and the real world, talking the whole way home about how happy we were that we'd gone. It was truly the best 36 hours I've had in a long time, and I wouldn't have missed it for the world.


* By adventure, I mean Holly spilled gas all over her swimsuit coverup and it was so hot outside that I'm surprised she didn't just explode right there.