Watauga Lake

This weekend my brother and his family were renting a cabin about an hour away at Lake Watauga.  They invited us up for the day and we jumped at the chance to spend some time with family.

You see, my big brother and his wife and two boys have decided to make a huge life change and become missionaries with the IMB (the Southern Baptist International Missionary Board).  Pretty soon they will be going off to orientation and large city immersion and then on to Asia to live in a foreign country with foreign ways and a completely different and hard-to-learn language.  I'm so proud of them but I'm going to miss them a lot.  Even though we only see each other a handful of times a year, it always been comforting to know that they were only a half a day's drive away.  In less than a year, they will be half a world away.

Needless to say, we want to spend as much time with them before they leave as we can.

David and his cousin, Micah, are 9 months apart in age and love playing Legos and ninjas and doing anything else their little boy minds can think of to do.  Normally around Grandma's house, David is the only boy with his sister and girl cousin, Kaylie, playing girlie things.  But when Micah is around, he gets to be a total boy.  At the lake, the boys were holding sticks in the water, trying to catch fish.  David asked Daddy to grab a stick and help because they weren't catching anything.  Because we all know the missing ingredient was a third stick.

Going out in the canoe was the highlight of the lake trip for the kids.  I didn't go out because I can't sit in seats without backs very well at the moment.  The other 3 adults took turns taking the kids out.  It didn't really matter that it was November and too cold to swim. They loved it!

And, of course, it was always safety first when we were down by the lake.  Life jackets for the kids at all times, and for adults when they were in the canoe.  My super cute hubby is modeling the look.

Tim and Julie are relaxing in the cabin after all the lake fun.  They were watching the Tennessee game and, luckily, UT pulled out a win, although it wasn't very pretty.

There's the gang - Grandma, Grandpa, Tim, Matt (my brother), Desha (my sis-in-law), Julie, Nathan, Micah, and David.

And we know what we need to buy the kids for Christmas - some sunglasses!

Thanks fam for the great November lake day!