Lake of the Ozarks

Last weekend some girlfriends and I got a much needed vacation. My friends Tyra, Erin, Sara, and I went down to the Lake of the Ozarks for a few days. Tyra's parents live down there, and they were kind enough to invite us into their home for a few days of fun and relaxation. We left Thursday night after our husbands got home from work. I drove, and I am amazed at how awake I felt the whole 6 hour drive. I really thought I'd get sleepy since we didn't leave until almost 6 p.m. and didn't arrive until about midnight, but I didn't get sleepy at all. Last year I was not able to make the trip- I was up at my sister's place for her baby shower, and on the drive down, the other 3 girls hit a deer. So we were all a little nervous about the deer this time. I've never hit a deer, and while I know you're not supposed to swerve to avoid a deer, I have never been real confident in my ability to just keep driving and to resist that instinct to swerve. Anyway, I got a chance to test it out, as about an hour and a half into the trip, a little fawn jumped right up out of the ditch and ran across my lane. I hit the brakes without giving everyone whiplash, and as I got close, I swerved just a tiny bit, and missed that darn thing, which had stopped on the yellow line, by about 12 inches. At least that's how close it seemed to be in my mind. From that point on, I think I was too nervous to get sleepy, which turned out to be fine. A little while later a truck with no lights on about backed into our car as it was backing out of a driveway onto the highway. That didn't help with my nerves much. I don't even like driving at night anyway, so I was very happy to arrive at Tyra's parents' house! After socializing for a bit with Denny and J.C., Tyra's parents, we headed to bed for some much needed rest. I'd been up that day since before 5:00 a.m., so by 1:30 a.m. I was TIRED!

Friday I got up earlier than I would have liked, but I just can't sleep in very well anymore. So Sara and I headed out for a run/walk. I ran and Sara walked, and I met up with her at the end of my run. Running 5 miles down there is definitely harder than it has been here at home- it's very hilly and curvy and it was definitely humid. It was a good run, though, and I made decent time, so I was happy with that.

Once everybody was up and ready we headed out on the jet skis. I've been down to Tyra's parents' house 3 other times, and I've never been on a jet ski. One time I was too sunburned, another time I was pregnant, and the last time Mike and Zach were with me, so I stayed back with Zach while Mike went. I always felt a little nervous, so I didn't mind having an excuse not to go. This time I had no excuse, though, so I had to do it. Erin and Sara kept saying how there was no way they were riding with Tyra because she was too wild for them, yet that didn't really make me any more nervous. I knew Tyra wouldn't be too crazy with me on there. Anyway, we had a blast. After riding for a while behind Tyra, we switched spots and I drove. I was surprised I didn't make Tyra sick, as it took me a little while to get used to slowing down gradually rather than totally taking my finger off the gas. I got us up to about 40 mph, which felt pretty fast to me, but it's probably not. Tyra and I switched spots again and she got us going a little faster. At one point we flew over some waves and I thought for sure I was going to fly off, but amazingly I didn't. Tyra said when she looked at the speedometer when we were airborne, it said 56 mph. It was a lot of fun.

After resting for a bit after getting off the jet skis, we headed out on the boat with Tyra's parents. We rode around on the lake for a while and then went to Jolly Roger's, a pirate themed restaurant, for dinner and drinks.

Here's a picture from the restaurant. I had gone for my run, spent hours in the sun on the jetski, gotten drenched with lake water, ridden around on the boat, and still had not showered, so it's not my best picture. From left to right it goes Tyra, Sara, me, and Erin.

We got home from dinner a little before 8:00, and Sara and I were especially tired from our late night and early morning, so we both took naps before we headed out for the night. I'm not much of a napper, and I've certainly never taken a nap at 8:0o at night before, but I tell ya, that 15 minutes was just what I needed to catch a second wind. We headed out to the Horny Toad and Jeremiah's for some drinks and dancing.

Here we are just before leaving Tyra's parents' house.

So we headed out to the Horny Toad, and we were surprised to see there not many people there. It filled up fairly quickly, though, and we were a little depressed to realize we were the oldest women there. As women we were totally outnumbered by men in general. The music varied, but mostly it was younger stuff that we weren't so into. They did play some good "older" stuff, though, which we enjoyed dancing to. We saw a couple of bar fights, lots of younger women wearing inappropriate clothes, and one guy's hairy butt as he mooned us, so it was an eventful night. We pretended we were young again and stayed out until 1:00 a.m. and then talked until 3:00.

Saturday we needed to sleep in, but I don't do that very well, so I was up around 8:30 and had a nice breakfast with Tyra's parents, did a work out, read a magazine, and lazed around. At about 2:00 we headed out to the huge outlet mall for some retail therapy. We stayed in Saturday night and had a delicious dinner prepared by Denny and J.C. and some more good conversation.

Sunday we amazingly left the lake at about the time we said we were going to leave. We had a nice drive home and I got to spend the evening with Mike and the boys. They had a good boys only weekend, too. While I was gone it seemed healthy eating went out the window. I found out that Zach ate cheeseburgers for 3 of the 8 meals he had while I was gone (two of them being fast food, which we never eat), and pizza for another meal, but whatever.

It was a great weekend with great friends. It was so nice to get a break from taking care of the boys, but I was happy to come home, too.

Sorry about the blue font. I don't know how to change it.