The Summer of Bella Luce

This past summer will be memorable for many reasons. Some obviously not great at all (horribly scary days with our baby in the hospital), but I'm glad that we'll have some really fun memories as well because of Bella Luce.

Bella Luce is the name given to the lakehouse that Wade's parents rented for the summer. And having a lakehouse for the summer, eventually led to having a boat as well. Oh if I only had a picture of Wade's face when the boat arrived. Giddy doesn't even describe it. :)

Things started rough figuring out the new boat and finding a dock. And there were some serious "Strzwald" moments that I won't capture (good thing we can laugh about them all now!), but after all of the kinks got worked out, it turned into a great summer. I wish that I had more pictures, but at this stage of life, that task is proving to be quite challenging. So here are the few that I have.

These are two of Tate's most favorite people. He looooooves his cousins, Trip & Mary Tish. And I have to say that I have been so proud of them in how good they are with Tate. At 13 and almost 11, they could be at the age that a 3-year-old following you around EVERYWHERE you go could be very annoying. But they love it. And he loves them both.

Even the weekend Trip had his four friends at the lake, they let Tate join in the fun. In fact, it was pretty funny to hear Tate making sure the boys always knew where he was and when he would be back. "Guys! I'm right over here!"

And Bella Luce proved to be a perfect retreat for my very talented mother-in-law. This is one of her works of art while still in progress.

Tate with one his best buds, Deacon. And look there's a monster truck! Even at a lakehouse, there are monster trucks around. :)

At the beginning of the summer, Tate had no fear about riding on the tube. Somehow as the summer went on, he became more apprehensive and said he didn't want to go anymore. But one day after his friend Deacon went on the tube all by himself, he decided he wanted to do the same. So this picture is right before his first solo tubing...and wouldn't you know it...the tube caught too much water in the front and went under. Wade immediately dove in the lake and Tate promptly got in the boat saying, "I'm all done, please!" Bummer way to end the tubing experience, but he was just as happy riding in the boat watching everyone else.

A great memory for Trip is that this is the summer he learned to water ski and wake board. Way to go! Wade got in several wakeboard runs himself, and I finally (on the very last day) got in a good, long water skiing run.

Tate still talks about Bella Luce. Of the four of us, he was able to spend the most time there with some fun days of just he, Mo Mere, and the cousins. He loved every single minute. And he was very sad when I had to tell him at the end of August that Bella Luce would be closed. It was a fun summer with some great memories!