Family Gathering 2019
We spent the better part of the day at Manila Lake.
It is beautiful, reasonably small or quite large,
depending on what you want it to be.
It is clean and has a beach with sand and lots of little fish
and plenty of room for many people.
We took several cars, a table, a canopy, a cooler,
FOOD, sunscreen, water, chairs, 6 giant tubes, 2 kayaks,
life jackets for little people and much more.
We put a blanket on the ground
and clipped a tablecloth to the side where the sun was coming in
and settled back.
The tubes hooked together.
They were easy to pull through the water.
Now and then we looked out from our protected position in the shade
to see boats and tubes and kayaks connected together.
We saw hands flapping in the water and eyes squinting in the sunlight.
The kids thought the whole thing was pretty close to heaven.
No one was in a hurry.
There were no bodies being pushed out of the tubes.
This group was content to talk and float
but it is clear that one person was doing most of the work.
The lake had a little bit of everything.
Some kids just wanted to be left alone to float and look and listen.
Even if a parent did call from the shore to come and get more sunscreen,
kids could pretend they didn’t hear
and wait until they got hungry and had to go in
or until the parent swam out to the tube
which would never happen.
Not everyone wanted to be in the middle of the lake.
Some people liked the edges of the lake . . . like Tucker and his boats.
This lake is shallow for many steps out.
It has been made for children of all ages.
These kids swim like graceful fish and eat like sharks !
