Margarita and Amstel Light

Once a year, at the end of the summer, my best friend travels from Indiana with her three girls, to spend a week with me at Apple Valley Lake, where my in-laws have a place.   The whole week is basically a dance between us and our children where we do something fun with them, like feed them, and then they are supposed to reciprocate by leaving us alone to talk and drink.

This never works, though, and we end up having to play games with them in the cove, put band aids on them, watch their plays and dance contests, and tie dye anything they can get their hands on.  Therefore, at night, when we finally put them to bed, is when the party really gets started and we stay up late and laugh well into the wee hours of the morning. This process is simultaneously exhausting and exhilarating. 

Luckily, the smart ass gene that Alissa and I passed down to our children was not recessive and the girls began to give everyone nicknames toward the middle of the trip.  Mine was Margarita and Alissa's was Amstel Light.  I have no idea why.  I think with my blond hair and blue eyes, I look Mexican to them (Shakira, Shakira), and Alissa has brown hair and hazel eyes and is a dead ringer for a German liederhosen ( Wait, isn't that a pretzel?  Or is it a sausage? Maybe it's pantyhose.)

Anyway, one thousand and one inside jokes come out of each of our trips and we have made memories that are priceless.  Alissa and I can rif on anything and if "beating a dead horse" were illegal, we'd be in prison.  So, on one of our trips, I decided to take all six of the girls out on the pontoon.  The lake house sits on a cove and the pontoon faces the dead end of the cove so you have to kind of parallel park your way out of it to get to the open water.

It happened to be 150 degrees that summer and we have all of the kids roasting with their life vests on while I alternate between choking the engine and calling my father-in-law.  You can just imagine.  So finally I get the boat started and I am freaking out because I have to pull forward, then cut it, and then back out of the cove.  I am about to run aground so I flip it in reverse and cut it hard and I end up running into our dock with all of the kids on it.  I recover and we go to the beach that happens to be covered in goose shit.  The kids stay, oh, maybe 5 minutes, and then want to leave.

We are all climbing back into the boat when I realize that I have completely dented in the corner of the boat that houses the gas containers.  It is crushed like a ten can.  This is not my boat.  I am hysterical and I feel awful and irresponsible.  I call my father-in-law, bawling crying and explain that I will pay for everything and that I have already ordered the part.  It is $500.  Actually, Alissa called the boat place and pretended she was me because I could not get myself together enough to make the call.  My Father-in-law was completely understanding and gracious like he always is when I screw something up and we decide to do all of our water travel from then on, on the jet ski.

So, last summer we are at the lake and I found out that the word around town is that all of our neighbors around the cove hoist their boats up and put out a warning each time I am at the Lakehouse without supervision.  I only find this out because all of the neighbors are drinking together after rescuing all of the kids after they managed to capsize the paddle boat and sink it like a mini Titanic on the other side of the cove.

Recently, all of our kids got on TextNow on their ITouches (not my 4-year-old, I don't like her as well as my other two children).  Anyway, it was Mills' birthday and Alissa was telling her 6-year-old, Anna, that they should call her and wish her "Happy Birthday".  Anna, who has a bit of a lisp, which Alissa and I love to imitate, turns to her Mom and says, "I know, Mom, I alweady texted hur."  Classic.   

My recommendation today - plan a vacation with your best friend and your kids together.  I get the biggest kick out of watching my best friends' girls and my girls develop a friendship.  We have fantasies about them rooming together in college, or at least attending the same rehab.