Memorial Day Weekend 2017

Wow, Can you believe that Memorial Day Weekend has already come and gone? In fact, we’ve had a second weekend since then! Yowzers! Time needs to slow down a little bit, or a lot bit really! So, we learned what the meaning was behind Memorial Day last week and we definitely want to thank those who have fought so hard for our freedom! Memorial Day weekend also seems to be the kick off to summer. The days get progressively longer (that is until June 20, then we working in to shorter daylight hours….), the weather gets warmer, and so does the water! It’s a perfect time to get SCUBA certified if you aren’t already and if you are, get your behind to that water!!

Okay, okay, so as you know if you’ve been around this group any at all, that there are a lot of shenanigans that happen when you put us all together. I’m going to attempt to recap those moments in this blog post but be warned of 2 things… 1) sometimes things that happen at the lake, stay at the lake. And 2) Because I’m putting 4 days into one post, you’re looking at 45 pictures. Hey I took it down from 168, you’re welcome!

Memorial Day Weekend

Friday

These 3 got together again. They are the next bunch of shenanigan makers!

Sisco & Pete were in heaven. I think Sisco wound up swimming so much she collapsed out of tiredness that night and didn’t move until morning.

Seems like every Memorial Day Weekend we’re at the lake these last few years, the water is up. That’s okay, makes for good diving, right? No complaints here… just noting!

We had open water classes Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. It was a busy weekend of diving.

I needed pictures under water of this one, so I sent Dan down with my new Sealife 2000 camera. OMG, I love this camera and here before long I’ll share with you why. Let’s just say that I was able to save some of my pictures because of the configuration I had set up on this camera. I’m in love. ha! Should I mention here that the blogger (that’s me) loves cameras? Oh, you already knew that. Okay, moving on.

With the water being up, your “entrance” and “exit” points there on shore look a little different. Instead of the rocks we’re used to, we kind of have some of the grass. Then there seemed to be a lot of silt on the bottom, covering the rocks. Diving this weekend always makes for fun and interesting dives because different times of the year always look different.

Lake Dog Pete was excited to be back at the lake.

It kind of seems like every year we have to recover something. This year happened to be a fin. We got the “recovery crew” out in the water Friday afternoon. Now unfortunately, they didn’t get their job done quite as fast as last year. Last year the camera was found in 6 minutes. This year, the fin was found in 3 days. Yeah, not quite the same time frame, but we knew where the camera was dropped, not so much the fin. That was anyone’s guess. The take away message though was this… The fin was found!

I would also like to point out, this is Steve the Tank’s maiden voyage. Oh, you don’t name your tank? Well, technically my phone named mine. Maybe I should discuss that story in another post sometime…. You never know, I might just start a trend of naming your tank…

That night we headed back to camp for dinner. It was a busy afternoon. Since we know we like to eat, here’s what we had…. Chicken Salad Sandwiches, chips, and homemade ice cream. Now for those of you who tried the ice cream, the recipe is coming soon. For those of you who didn’t try the ice cream… You TOTALLY missed out!

Saturday

Saturday morning started out a little something like this. We really thought we were going to get rained on. By the afternoon though, the sun was out and it was a beautiful day! No complaints from us!

So we’ve decided that Cheetos tend to be the food of choice, but only when we’re diving. I can’t explain it. Try it sometime!

The dogs came out to play as well. This one though, he doesn’t seem to be a huge fan of the water. He went out into the water after balls, etc. Then when he swam out to Jason, well….. he expected Jason to hold him and save him. It was funny.

I’m not kidding… all the dogs came out to play. Hey, we were at the lake, what were they supposed to do? Sit around and be bored. Heck no!

This is where I’d like to point out that we even had divers come dive with us this weekend all the way from Lincoln Nebraska. I think they win the medal for furthest distance away, followed closely by some of our students from Emporia, Kansas!

Saturday evenings meal consisted of (like that immediately from longest distance to food….) Pork Tenderloin, Meatloaf, and all the fixin’s. We even had a Pineapple Upside Down cake in honor of Deb’s Birthday and a Chocolate birthday cake in honor of Maddie’s birthday! Oh… and more homemade ice cream. Like I said, we went all out. If you walk away hungry, that might be your fault. 🙂

There were also these… Peanut Butter Pies. Grady and Dan each got one and weren’t going to share. Don’t worry, Deb made them play nice. haha!

And the Snickers made their appearance again.

And while Doug got one of the Snickers… the big story is… It wouldn’t be Memorial Day Weekend if Doug didn’t pull away from camp and get mooned as he drove by the back side of our camp site. I sure hope those who do the mooning don’t accidentally moon the wrong person… just saying….

Sunday

So there were huge threats of sever weather on Saturday night. Really all we had was a bunch of rain and a nice lightning show accompanied by some sounds. I hear back home, people especially in Carthage had huge Hail problems….

The one thing we did lose was this big shade tree. Such a sad day, really!

Sunday also started out very cloudy. But again the clouds burned off and it was a beautiful day! Sunday morning started out with dive briefings for the student divers, followed by their dives!

Then we sat up on top of the hill and conversed and blew bubbles and laughed and got into popcorn fights and, and, and. There may have even been fights over who got to “wear the mustache.” I should mention at this point that the mustache was pretend and that two of the littles fought over the mustache for around 45 minutes… No joke.

After a day of diving we headed back to camp for dinner. I got made fun of for taking this picture, but I joked that the blogger takes the pictures, very rarely is she in the pictures. I was just trying to prove that I was in fact, there.

Three years ago Pete peed on my leg during Memorial Day Weekend. I was 9 months pregnant and couldn’t move and always joked that he was marking his territory. This year, he walked over and sat on my foot. Again I joked that he was marking his territory but this year I could run from him peeing on me… so he was trying to make sure I couldn’t leave. ha!

Sunday night’s meal consisted of Fish Tacos, left overs from the previous nights, sizzling onions (recipe to come in the following days!), and left over desserts including but not limited to chocolate cake, cupcakes, peanut butter pie, and chocolate ice cream.

Memorial Day Monday

Today we honor and Thank you!

This morning we were greeted by this beautiful view. So glad I had my camera on me so I could capture this picture!

NEBCO has a benefit Fundraiser breakfast on the Monday morning of Memorial Day Weekend every year. Every year we gather up a crowd to take with us and head off to go eat breakfast. As you can see this year we had 16 people make the “journey” to Garfield. Lee, Jason, Maddie, Margaret (aka Memaw), Tori, Mark, Addison, Nicole, Deb, Grady, Priscilla, Aaron, Steve, Megan, Carlene, & Dan

We then headed back to the campground to hook up to the trailer and go to the water site. We had 2 divers left to certify. After that it was time to pack up and head home.

No trip to the lake is complete without stopping at Short Stop… I swear, these posts always revolve around food. haha!

And because Pete didn’t get his fill of the water, he needed to get in the pool once he got home…..

This trip to the lake brought to you by Memorial Day Weekend and all those who fought to keep our Freedom Free. Congratulations to all our new Open Water Certified Divers!!

 

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