VICTORY is MINE

Much like the name of this blog, I was victorious on water skis this past weekend at Elk Lake in Pennsylvania. Our friends, Theresa and Paul invited us to Paul's dad's house on the lake (more like Mike begged them to take us). We forgot my bungee cord training guide, but I didn't need it after all. On Saturday, I managed to get up a few short times but then I couldn't stand up again. Paul's advice, "no thinking" really helped. I channeled my "inner blond" and put all thoughts out of my head and it worked! After that, though, I started thinking again and gravity pulled its tricks on me and I couldn't get up again. Sunday, however, was the day when I conquered my skis and not only stood up, but I went around the lake twice in one try!!! I couldn't stop grinning and giggling over being up on the water. It was thrilling and a little scary at the same time. I managed to bend my knees a little, but Paul said I was a little wooden on the skis. Next time, I'm going to try shifting my weight. We'll see how it goes. I am just so excited. Take that, you young whippersnappers who don't try new things. I did it!

The lake and the houses on it are so cute. They remind me of the cottages from Dirty Dancing. I half expected Baby and Johnny to come walking by with a watermelon. I felt like I was transported back in time to a simpler life. The Elk Lake community is very close and they had a field day Saturday and fishing derby on Sunday. We participated in the "covered dish" dinner on Saturday with Theresa and Paul and "helped" them bring two covered dishes to share. After dinner, we competed in the egg toss - with raw eggs. We did better than I thought we would, and came in third place after our egg exploded all over my arms, legs, and clothes. Somehow, I knew when we started that I would be the one with egg all over. Next time, I am bringing an apron, goggles, and a helmet - just in case!

Mike learned to wakeboard a couple of years ago in Texas and has loved it ever since. He just jumps right up and goes. He always looks so serious when he's wakeboarding and every once in a while he'll crack a smile, so Theresa and I teased him about it. Meanwhile, Paul has a whole routine when he wakeboards: he gets up, tucks the rope under one arm, wipes the water off his face, tousles his hair, tugs on his swim trunks, and checks his life jacket. Every time. Plus, he just grins while he wakeboards. We told Mike he needs to smile more - so he started smiling a little more plus he imitated Paul by tousling his hair too. That made us giggle.

It was a fantastic weekend. We had a great time. It almost made me forget that my one year checkup is NEXT WEEK. That's right - next Thursday. My actual anniversary date is August 15, but it's so close that I'll just celebrate on the 7th and again on the 15th. I'll be grumbling a bit next week because my appointment is at 11:30 and knowing how things go, I won't be done until 1pm and that means I won't be able to EAT until 1pm. Sigh. I'll be clutching my chocolate croissant until the moment I can finally eat and enjoy it. It's been a much better year so far than where I was almost 365 days ago. I can definitely count my blessings multiple times over.

Water Ski - Me?

Yes, I managed to (briefly) get up on skis this past weekend at Smith Mountain Lake! After many, many tries on Saturday and Sunday I finally stood up for several long seconds - the longest time I have been up on skis. It was awesome, it was thrilling, it was cool. I used Mike's "bungee cord method" (I wrap a bungee cord around my knees to keep me from doing a spread eagle face plant in the water) and it finally worked. I lost three bungee cords in the process, but managed to keep the last one the longest. I swallowed a lot of lake water and got plenty up my nose (now, there's a visual!) but I DID IT!! I talked to myself a lot out there saying stuff like, "I kicked cancer's butt and this is not as tough, so just do it already!" It didn't work too often, but when I least expected it, I was standing up on the water. Once I was up, I had a whole new set of problems to think about like figuring out how to balance myself. Alas, it didn't last long and I couldn't figure out how to do it again but I'm really close to having a longer run. We're going to another lake in PA this weekend with other friends and I'm going to try again and again until I am successful because it was FUN.

Getting older seems to be working for me. I took up rock climbing a couple of years ago and this year, I'm working on water skiing. Life is good.

Happy FOREth!

It's the Fourth of July and the AT&T PGA National Golf tournament is in town at Congressional Country Club. The Tiger Woods Foundation put the call out to lots of local community service groups asking for volunteers to work the tournament and the Jaycees jumped at the chance. Well, actually Mike jumped at the chance since Tiger was supposed to play this weekend. However, as you know Tiger injured himself several weeks ago and he's not allowed to play. We signed up to volunteer anyway to make some money for the chapter. We were the only Jaycees there today but we worked with the Kiwanis and some people from CASA. We were stationed in a nice tent near the 11th green and we sold sodas, water, hot dogs, brats, and some other goodies. It was a sunny hot day for most of the day and we had some pretty decent crowds, which makes the day go by much faster. After our shift was over we walked around to see some of the golfers. I don't know many of them, but we saw KJ Choi, Davis Love III, and local boy Fred Funk. I also saw some nice, young, cute golfers who were certainly nice to look at! We go back Sunday to work the tent with several more Jaycees. Sunday is the big golfing day so it should be pretty exciting.

Now we're going out to hopefully watch some fireworks - if it stops raining. Happy fourth, America!