Sweet Summertime: Allie's Special Day

My sweet little girl, who has been the center of our world for the last 4 years of her life, has had to share our attention with her little brother for a bit too long now so we decided to get away and just spend some time with our Allie Cat! We had gone to an Engagement Party back at the beginning of the summer that was on Lake Hamilton and Allie begged me to take her riding on one of the boats that was docked at the Restaurant. So we decided to take her to Lake Ouachita for the day and rent a boat. I grew up on Lake Ouachita and it was so good for my soul to be able to share some of those memories with Allie.

We "Island-Hopped" the majority of the day. We nicknamed the first Island "Vertebrae Island" because when we pulled up, there was a spine of a large animal on the shore. Allie loved swimming around in the water and skipping rocks with her Daddy.

The next Island that we went to had a ton of little fish swimming around. Allie threw out a Cheese-It cracker and it was like bee's to a honey comb, the fish were fighting over the crackers. We at first thought is was funny until the crackers were all gone and they started swarming us looking for more. We didn't hang out on "Fishy Island" very long.

We drove around the lake for awhile after lunch and Allie took a quick nap. Then we decided to go out to the deep part of the lake and all jump in. The water was extra cool and Allie thought it was so neat that we were out in the middle. In fact, to this day, if you ask her what her favorite part was, she will tell you when we swam in the middle. The tricky part was when we decided to get back in the boat. John and I realized that the ladder was not sturdy, No, it was barely even attached to the boat. For a moment, we envisioned, having to hold on to the sides and instruct our 4-year-old how to drive the boat back for us! Luckily with a bit of team-work and a complete abandonment of any self respect and dignity, we managed to hoist ourselves back into the boat. Come to think of it, maybe that is why Allie enjoyed that part so much?!

I have so many fond memories of driving the boat with my Dad. This has to be my favorite picture of the day.