Sweet Summertime

As I drove to the lake last Friday, I looked out the window towards the sky. The sky was painted with dancing stars. They were everywhere. At that moment, I realized I had to blog about this. I used to frequent the lake about twice a month. This all started when my best friend, Mindy, bought a condo and boat at the Ozarks about six years ago. In the past couple years, my summers have filled up with weddings, BirthStories, and tons of other shoots. As much as I love these shoots, my weekends disappear before my eyes. Four months ago, Mindy decided she was going to put a stop to my Lake MIA issues. We looked through the calendar and found a date that I had no wedding booked. August 27-29th it was.

Throughout my two days spent there, I kept reminding myself of how thankful I was. Thankful for so many reasons that I had to make a Top 4 Reasons to Go to the Lake List. It was supposed to be a Top 3, but my indecisiveness left me with four great reasons. Drumroll please.......

4. Feeling the wind blow through my hair and getting my intake of Vitamin D.
As we spent all Saturday on the boat, I could feel the warmth of the sun soak into my skin (with the proper SPF of course). :) As we drove from cove to cove, I laid back on the bow of the boat letting the wind blow through my hair. I looked up and the clouds were UNREAL. I even took the time to play a game I have not played since I was a child. The "What Shape is that Cloud" game. Oh yeah....I did, and you know why, because I did not have one other thing on my mind, and that my friends....I loved. :)

3. Cold drink in hand, dancing, and singing along to every song with my best girlfriends. It was like we were 15 all over again. What is not to love about that?

2. Nothing to do. Nowhere to be.
I live under a schedule. I like to fill my day up with work and to-do lists. It makes me feel a sense of accomplishment. This weekend was all about "a simple kind of free" as my man, Johnny Mayer would say. Basically, this weekend consisted of no work, no plans...but rather quality, uninterrupted time with my friends and myself.

1. Sitting under the stars.
I mentioned this earlier, but I noticed them on my way to the lake. I noticed them as I sat on the patio overlooking the water at night, and I noticed them as I drove home on Sunday. There is something so awing about laying back, looking up and feeling so small in the world. I even saw a shooting star. I almost had forgotten that shooting stars really exist. Of course stars are always there, but the cloudy city sky often makes you forget that they are there. Witnessing the bright stars illuminate the sky turned out to be one of those things that I did not realize I was missing until I had it in front of me again. It made me count and thank the lucky stars in my own life, even on the days when I am not feeling so lucky.

All and all, it was a good weekend.

I did not bring my "Real Camera" this weekend....so this is one of the pics I snapped with my point and shoot camera as I was laying out on the front of the boat playing my cloud game.