THE LAKE OF THE OZARKS....

Well Thursday evening Angie, Mandy and I packed everything up and hit the road for the Lake of the Ozarks. Each year, for the past 7 years or so, Mandy and I have gone on a fishing trip with my Dad. Each year we stay in a cabin next door to my grandparents and just do TONS of fishing. Well as we have gotten older and as Lane has gotten older, it seems that he is taking our spot a little bit and doing more of the fishing with my Dad as Mandy and I stay back and help cook or just try to get tan! :D This was the first year actually we didn't even get fishing licenses. :) Anyway, back to my story......so we set out and of course I thought I knew EXACTLY how to get there. Bad thinking..... we were on 54 headed to Jefferson City and I asked Mandy, (she was driving), "Are we supposed to pass Jeff City?" She thought so and Angie did, but ME the one who KNEW how to get there didn't think so, but alas, I was wrong! :) I ended up calling David to get me directions to the lake. Ended up we had all the right roads, I just wasnt sure the mileage for each highway so I was getting confused. It was a nice drive down there though. It had stormed earlier that day, but no rain on our drive down and we had a beautiful sunset!
While getting onto Hwy 54 we saw this truck at a stoplight. Is this not the sickest thing you have ever seen in your life? Yuck! (In case you can't tell what that is, it's a bunch, a WHOLE bunch of chickens crammed into those little pens on the truck...I thought they were dead, but then one moved, so unless something creepy was going on, I'm pretty sure they were all alive....barely!)
After the 3 hour drive we finally arrived at Wilson's Resort at 10:00 pm. Mandy was exhausted and just went to bed and I went to play with Lane for a little bit. Oh boy did he change though....after spending a week up there with just the guys, he became all rough and tough and didn't want anything to do with a girl! There were SO many bugs out also, which was pretty gross. In our cabin and my grandparents there were these little black bugs that would just go straight to the ceiling. They weren't horrible, since they didn't come around me too much, but they were everywhere. After playing a few hours I went to bed also but couldn't sleep too good the first night.
The next morning I was up by 6:30. Like I said, I couldn't sleep too well, so I just ended up getting up and went to get some pictures. There are squirrels EVERYWHERE down there and they are usually quite friendly, but this one particular squirrel was SO mean. I thought he was going to attack me. He ended up getting to the railing by me so he was pretty close I thought I'd be able to get some nice shots, but he started doing this tail banging thing and making MEAN sounds so I kind of just stepped back and forgot about him. A nice picture isn't worth getting attacked by a squirrel! ;)
Basically everyday we would just hang out up there. One day I went swimming in the lake with the kids, but it was SO freezing, I mean, I felt like an ice cube. So that was the only day I went but they ended up going every day. I would usually just sit on the swim dock and watch them and take pictures--which was fun!

(Mandy's days consisted of this a lot! ;)

On Friday my Grandma told my Dad it was his night to cook dinner, so he in turn came to Mandy and I and said, "Girls, it's your night to cook!" :D We just laughed and then Mandy said, "Oh, lets make kabobs, that seems like a festive thing!" So we started thinking what we could put on them and Angie threw in some ideas, so we agreed that I'd make the kabobs and Mandy would make a salad and we ended up making some pasta salad as well. The chicken kabobs were quite an adventure though...we have NEVER made them in our lives, but everyone was thinking or assuming we were pros at it or something...until we proved otherwise! ;) :P Getting the kabobs prepared was easy and fun but when it came to grilling it was a bit more complicated. I had forgot to pick up charcoal at the grocery store so we were relying on a little bit of charcoal my grandparents had. So I asked my Dad to light the grill and get it ready. Well by the time I got out there to put the kabobs on there was like NO charcoal left. The grill was hot but soon the charcoal would just crumble and be gone. So my Dad said to just put ALL the kabobs on the grill at once and leave the lid on. So instead of taking like 20 min. the amount of time I was planning on it taking, it took about 2 1/2 hours! Kind of became a family cooking night though, we ended up having all of us around the grill watching it. Oh and another mistake I made. I had the chicken marinating in teryiaki sauce for like 2 hours, well after the 2 hours cooking the chicken it was like MAJORLY soft, almost not normal. We ended up finding out that the sauce we marinated in acted as a tenderizer so we had some REALLY TENDER chicken! :D :D :D (Not sure that's a good thing)

(My Dad)

(My Uncle Danny) ;)

Here are just some random lake pictures:

(The boat dock)

Okay, my last story. I'd love to write more but Hanah woke up so I have to finish this up. :( But I can't publish this post without my last final "episode" of the trip! My Grandpa had gone to the store to get marshmellows for everyone to roast. Well, I HATE marshmellows so I just took pictures instead. Of course though the camera was messing up, or I was...not sure which, so that wasn't working either but as I was messing with it I felt something on my foot. Since there are so many bugs I just kicked my foot some and thought it went away. Then I felt someone right near my ankle so I kicked my leg to get the "knat" or so I thought off of me. Well finally I felt that same thing up near my knee and so I looked down and I had a HUGE ROACH on me!! YUCK! I was screaming so much and kicking my leg wouldn't get it off so I actually had to touch the thing. My cousin who loves bugs was even afraid of it! It was just so sick! I had enough for that night, I ended up leaving the marshmellow party and went inside! ;)

(Brittany, we did her hair for her one night)

(I think this kind of stuff only happens to us, we let the balloon go and look it wouldn't even fly away, usually you can't keep the things from getting loose and flying off...nope, not us!"

(A lizard that Devin caught...oh wait or was it Brittany?)