A Deaf Mom Shares Her World » Christie Lake Adventures

Summer is Flying By

Ah, it felt good to unplug this week.

I took the kids back up to Christie Lake on Sunday to grab the last full week up here. My cousins came up from Missouri again and my husband’s friend and his kids joined us on Wednesday. Mike and his kids only planned to stay two days, but it’s Sunday morning and they’re still here. We are sitting in the kitchen having omelettes and getting ready for a final boat ride before we head home. That’s the lure of lakeside living–good food, good friends and lots of fun. It’s hard to leave.

Yesterday, for the fun of it, we drove around the lake to see the few homes that are up for sale. Housing prices on the lake have soared in the last five years. We stopped at a house that was priced at $900,000 last year and is being offered at $649,000 this summer. It’s a beautiful piece of property but the house looks like it will require some work to update it. Also up for sale is a pair of houses that my friend Tammy rented for several years. The two tiny houses perched on a very tiny lot are going for $349,000. There’s also another small ranch home up for sale for nearly 300 grand.

There’s even a beautiful lot for sale for…are you ready for this….$345,000. This lot is on the same part of the lake that my two brothers owned land many years ago. They bought the lot for ten grand back then and sold it a few years later for a very small profit. It’s hard to believe that land has soared that much in price but Christie Lake is a private lake, one of the few private lakes in Michigan with no public access.

For the last couple of years, I have been talking about buying a jet ski. I started looking at used ones earlier in the summer. I came close to purchasing a few of them, but someone else always beat me to the offer. “Why don’t you look at a new one?” the hubby suggested. I stopped at Leader’s Marine in Kalamazoo on the way home from dropping off a Redbox movie and looked at the new ones. Sea Doo was running a special with low cost financing and a $800 gas card.

I went to talk to Dick, a 74-year-old neighbor who owned pretty much every toy there is. He had some ski lifts sitting in the water and I wanted to see if I could buy one. They’ve gone through three used jet skis. The most recent one was purchased by his son earlier in the summer and it was already out of commission just a few weeks later. I was apprehensive about buying used vs. new. I was leaning toward the new Sea Doo, mostly because it had a key that wouldn’t let a user go over 35 mph. I could use that for the kids to keep them from going full speed at 50-60 mph.

“Life is short, go buy it!” Dick said.

Life is short. How many times have I said that to other people?

And that’s how I ended up buying a Sea Doo for my birthday.

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Are You Enjoying Your Summer?

It was like old times. We invited two families to join us at Christie Lake over the weekend. Dennis, Laura, Steve and Joanne. Plus their kids. It was the first time we all kicked back together up at the lake. The weather forecast called for rain the entire weekend but none of us cared. We just wanted to connect with one another and catch up on life.

Visiting St. Julian's Winery

It definitely rained. We decided to go to the St. Julian Winery in the morning. We left Dennis behind with the kids, and they took off in the rain to go swimming. I hadn’t been to the winery since I was a kid, sipping grape juice at the bar. It was fun to sample the wine and try unusual ones. We ended up buying a blackberry wine and the Niagara.

After the sampling, we took a tour of the winery. The tour guide slowed down his speech and faced us while he spoke, so the tour was pretty accessible for us. Unfortunately, the short movie in the beginning wasn’t captioned.

When we arrived back, the rain slowed down. We grabbed lunch and then decided to go tubing with just the adults first. The kids were taking a break from all the swimming they did.

As I whipped Dennis and Steve around, I tried to make sure that Steve didn’t fall off too hard or crash his head into Dennis. I didn’t want to jar his cochlear implant internally and be responsible for sending him back into the hospital for a re-implant. When Steve climbed into the boat, he thanked me for the wild ride. “That was me being cautious!” I laughed.

Steve brought up his kayaks so we all took turns kayaking around the lake. On Sunday, the sun came out in the afternoon so we took the pontoon out and swam in the middle. We took the kids tubing and kneeboarding the rest of the time.

This was a rare weekend for all of us together but I was really thankful for it. There’s nothing like spending some time with friends and family, sharing good food and good times.

So how’s your summer going? Are you finding enjoyable moments to kick back and enjoy? Share them in the comment section!

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A Week to Remember at Christie Lake

Vacation time is over and a mound of laundry is sitting in the laundry tub. I can hear my Mom chiding me as she reads this. But I told you to wash your laundry while you were up there!

The week started out with Steven’s baseball team’s championship win. No sooner did we arrive back up in Michigan and the storm clouds began to roll in. We covered up the boats just before the skies let loose with angry mix of wind and rain. The electric went out from Wednesday evening until Friday morning.

Everyone made the best of it. Shortly after we lit up the lanterns, the kids began to make up dances in the kitchen. Mom and my cousin, Marilyn, began doing line dances, the fox trot and the cha-cha (at least, I think that’s what the hopping around looked like).

On the fourth of July, the weather was beautiful. The kids decorated the pontoon for the annual boat parade. We didn’t have many boats this year–either the price of gas kept everyone on shore or they didn’t want to particpate in the water fights afterwards.

Right after the parade, we threw a surprise 40th birthday party for my cousin Cheri. Cheri’s brother passed away when she was a teen, so her actual birthday at the end of the year always holds sad memories. So we celebrated her “half” birthday instead. The cake was decorated in black icing, with two nice mounds of icing-covered oranges in honor of her new growth. That’s right, Cheri’s gift to herself this year was never-before-seen cleavage. I gotta tell ya, my cousin rocks. She took up running, lost weight and looks like a knock-out. She’s my inspiration. I’ve got the boobs, now I want the body to match.

There’s more. The vacation wouldn’t be memorable if it wasn’t for the way it started… and ended. On Saturday night, we were next door at a party. The beer was flowing freely and the roasted pig was actually delicious, even after I declared that I wouldn’t eat it–there I was–sitting with a plate of it and downing it with my fourth cup of beer. Those who know me, you can pick your jaw up off the floor. Yes, I do like to imbibe every now and then.

Cheri’s husband came bounding over. “The septic tank just overflowed on the driveway,” he announced. Uh oh. So that smell– it was wafting over from our driveway. We tried to keep the news away from Mom as Dad slipped back home to call the septic company. Of course, there wasn’t anyone who was willing to come out over the weekend and empty the tank.

So there we were, with a bunch of people in the house and strict orders not to flush. Mom hollered at Dad for a bit. “I told you to call the septic company earlier in the week!” But then she quickly went into problem-solving mode, pulling out kitchen garbage bags and announcing that anyone who wanted to void themselves of solid contents would have to cover the toilet with a garbage bag first. We managed to get everyone through the weekend minus working toilets.

What can I say? It was definitely a memorable week.

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