The lake trip was great.

We got to the lake house on Thursday (5/24) and spent the day just hanging out. We swam a bit off of the dock and Korben actually jumped in to me without much prompting at all. He's always been scared to death of water before.

That night the kids went right down and Joy and I just sat out on the screened deck listening to the tree frogs and watching the moonlight on the water. Nice.

The next day, my cousin came up with her two girls and they stayed through Sunday morning. My mom and Grandmother came up on Saturday and spent the night, so for a while there it was almost like it was when I was a kid. Kids running all over playing and the adults just lounging around or trying to get the kids to stay still long enough to eat something.

No schedules, easy conversation and no work other than cooking and the subsequent cleaning make that a near perfect vacation spot. Oh, and no hotel costs, of course.

Almost forgot. I also introduced Korben to plinking. He did it the manly way with my 16 gauge shotgun, too. OK, he didn't really do any shooting. I mean, come on, the gun's bigger than he is and I only had the Express loads that are a bit hotter than normal. He did help me hold it up and aim at one of the cans, though. Plus, when we were policing up our shells and what was left of our cans he said "Daddy, what's that smell?"
"That's called 'cordite', buddy, it's the burned gunpowder from the shotshells."
"Oh. I like that smell."

Attaboy.