Memorial Day this year was spent relaxing and grilling out, and swimming! Michael came up and Matthew got him watching DVD ride-throughs of Disney World. Mom and Dad came up for a few minutes. Matthew fired up our grill that we had never used in 2 yrs since getting it. We had all the fixings for a great hamburger grill-out party. Except when we had all sat down at the table with our plates all made up we realized the hamburger patties had turned into leathery "cardboard" discs.. haha. Matthew had cooked them too fast, on too high of heat. Win some, lose some.. learn ALOT. So when Stefanie came by an hour later he made a nice juicy hamburger for her and the rest of us were a little upset.
Stefanie just HAD to mention going swimming in the "creek"... so we went swimming in the "creek". I so wish I had brought the camera. Since weve had little to no rain lately the "creek" where you go swimming was really just a small pond, cut off from the lake/river. And completely surrounded by river rocks. Granted, even though it was smaller than we had remembered, there were parts where even Michael barely could touch bottom. It was COLD, very cold, and very refreshing. Michael kept thinking he was going to find a dead body, but really there was just alot of branches and "nature" in the water. We swam there for about 45 minutes and decided to move somewhere a bit deeper so Michael could jump in.
We moved up the road a bit and got a place that was actually just a bank on the side of the lake/river. Thank goodness it didn't have slippery river rocks... just very tricky mud. It was about 4 feet (almost straight down bank) of hard-packed red clay mud and then at the water line it became mush. So, Michael and Stefanie got in, and I sat and watched from my chair to see how deep they could measure it, where the drop offs were, etc. It was much nicer since it was an actual flowing water source.. not weedy or too murky. They sized up the area and then I told them I would get in if they could prove to me that thy could get out on their own. Well, Stefanie "the Duck" found it quite easy and just swam and gracefully got out without having to wade through the mud. Michael found it a bit harder, and after about 30 minutes of trying we were definitely considering our options. I was still on the bank with Matthew (who refused to swim). I finally got in and swam a little around the bank where it was still really deep and over my head. Michael and Stefanie took off to swim across to the other side of the river about a good 300 feet away. By the time they got back it was time to go due to them being so exhausted. Matthew found a rope and rigged it up and I tried to get out that way, but the rope he had found in the woods had rotted and broke with me. Michael was seriously going to swim down to the bridge and let us pick him up there. I crawled though the mud and out of the water on my own and was positive I had chunks of rocks/broken glass in my legs. But Matthew helped my get cleaned up and I was fine. Stefanie got standing up and Michael and her were able to get out. We spent more time worrying over how to get out of the river than we did actually swimming. Next time we will take floats and better rope. I can't wait to go back, because it was so fun and no one was around, we only saw a few jet skis run down the channel, very peaceful place to swim. After all, we had a very stereotypical Memorial Day, grilling.. swimming.
We came home and took showers and Matthew made *juicy* burgers and we watched TV. I had a lot of fun.
Baby likes to sleep on any "clean" clothes that hasn't been put away.
Can you tell we are fond of our cats? Even Patchey, who messed up our Monopoly game! 
