Lake Update

We're currently up near Madison at "The Lake" for the annual family reunion. The very quick update:

Isaac did not nap, and instead talked, sang, yelled, and cried nonstop during our 5 hour drive yesterday. Bella, on the other hand, snoozed for quite a bit of it. Shamefully, we briefly had a "favorite child" in our lives. Hours later, once we were at the house and all of the cousins were playing, equilibrium returned.

We took a "party bus" to see Elvis Costello and The Police play in Milwaukee while a fleet of babysitters took control of the brood. Bella immediately bonded with her tween captors. In a joyous turn of events, it happened to coincide with "GermanFest" in the same area, so we started the evening with brats and beer and lederhosen and a cover band playing Billy Joel's "We didn't start the fire" in GERMAN. It was amazing.

The concert was wonderful, and oddly punctual: Elvis Costello launched into Pump it Up at 7:30 PRECISELY. Sting ambled onto the stage to sing "Allison" with the band... and some of the early Attractions were in the band too - Steve Nieve rocking the Vox Continental! The Police were incredible - they were a stripped down 3 piece, no keyboards, using old gear like Moog Taurus pedals and a Roland GR300 guitar synth. Wonderful evening.

After 2 long good encores, it was time to retreat to the party bus, where we were stuck in traffic, moving literally 20 feet in 1 hour. Then there were some detours, and we wound up going through some bad parts of town... we didn't get home until 1, and we were SPENT. Everyone slept in until a luxurious 7:45am.

Now we're at the lake and I've been out waterskiing twice already, once on a Wakeboard, which was pretty darn tough, but fun too. I'm planning to go out one more time this afternoon and try to drop a ski (intentionally). It's remarkable how fun watersports can be when you actually have some muscle strength to pull it off. I flash back to my wheezy twenties and my failures to waterski.... I have a good trophy for the day - a good shinwhack from tumbling over my skis on my last run.

Isaac is the mayor, as usual, but has been a LITTLE subdued today (perhaps still wiped out from his diva performance yesterday)... but the older cousins have really taken to him, just as Bella is in the middle of everything and is always given a special job in the games: All afternoon, a waterballoon fight has raged through the yard, and Bella and the armory guard.

So there's more sunlight and fun to be had... Signing off. Oh yes, I left the Blackberry at home. This is VACATION. ;->