Lake Conroe Summer Vacation - Part 1

I loooove the lake.  I always have.  If I have to choose between the beach and the lake, I will always choose lake.  Some of my fondest memories come from my lake trips.  I remember all-day catfishing trips with my dad on Lake Conroe when I was five years old.  The horrible smell of catfish "stink-bait" is ingrained in my head as a pleasant scent.  After hours of watching and helping my dad fish, I would fall asleep to the rocking motion of my dad's aluminum flat bottom fishing boat.  I would wake up with my skin browned to a crisp, load up into my dad's truck, and stick my face into the blasting AC while he loaded the boat onto the trailer.  These are the fond and vivid memories I have of that time.  Then at the age of 8 my dad and brother taught me how to water-ski.  They spent countless hours teaching a frustrated little girl how to get up on Snoopy training skis.  I finally got the hang of it and it has been one of my favorite things to do since.  As a teenager I would spend summer vacations with my friend, Emily, and her family on Lake Livingston.  There we went tubing, knee-boarding, and skiing.  I also learned how to slalom ski.  In college my friends and I would go jet-skiing on Lake Somerville.  There's nothing quite like skimming across the water at 50+ miles an hour, just to make a sudden turn and be thrown, knowing that the water below will cushion your fall.  It's exhilarating.  All of this to say that I love everything about the lake:  the freshwater, the surrounding trees, the fishing, the water sports, the peacefulness, the glassiness of the water at dawn, the crickets and frogs singing in the evening, the bumpy boat rides,  the boat traffic on holidays.  I love it all!

It goes without saying that I was thrilled when we found out that we could stay at Mike and Christy's lake house for our summer vacation!  This summer we wanted a low-key vacation. We didn't want to travel anywhere far or have a busy itinerary with a four month in tow....but we also didn't want to do a stay-cation. Fortunately, Brian's dad and step-mom, Mike and Christy, have a condo/lake house on Lake Conroe. They were gracious enough to let us stay there for the week! Mike and Christy have another home near the lake, so we were able to meet up with them a few on several occasions.

There is now a new memory I have of the lake from this vacation: lightning storms.  Yes.  Since the condo is right on the water I was able to sit and look out the patio window while the lightning danced across the sky.  It was scary, beautiful, calming and intriguing all at the same time to watch as it stormed over the water.  As corny as it sounds, it was almost poetic.  It's a good thing that we enjoyed relaxing and watching the rainstorms over the lake.....because that it was we did for most of our vacation! 

I'm kicking myself now for not taking a picture of the sky during one of its storms, but here is a picture of Arden asleep on the boat much like me when I was little.