The sun starts to rise up on the water, shining up on the clear morning. The water is calm, quiet. Only a few water-skiers skate across the lake trying to get the best of the lake before the world wakes up. Ducks are swimming in lines around the water, eating all the things they can scrape up. Everything is calm before the bustling day begins. Nothing to worry about around here, the higher the sun gets in the sky the more people start to take up the lake. From peaceful, to chaotic in the snap of you’re fingers. Boats speeding around with wake boarders trailing after, twisting, and jumping, at every sharp turn of the boat. Tubers screaming, flying, out of their tight grasp of the tube. Girls out on the docks, slicked up with tanning oil, laughing and getting splashed by their brothers.

She gazes out from the deck, thinking, reminiscing of all the good memories she’s had here. She sees her siblings and cousins trying to surf on the tiny waves that come to the shore from the speedboats in the middle of the lake. Her grandma is watching and sitting on the dock, feeding the ducks. The sound of motorboats jet skiiers fills the air!

“Lauren! Honey, it’s time for lunch!” her mom yells from the kitchen, interrupting her thoughts.

She calls up the rest of the family before moving inside. The smell of BBQ hits her like a wave, as the door slams shut behind her. Uncle and Grandpa are yelling at the TV, another football game. Great. She sits down with her food and pretends to know what’s going on, zoning out.

Finishing eating, putting her dishes in the sink, Lauren glances outside to see clouds setting in over the bright sun. What? NO not now. Not today! She thinks to herself this is exactly what we need. In a matter of minutes she watches as the rain starts to come down, slowly at first, then getting faster and faster hitting the lake like bullets.
“Where did this rain even come from, I swear it was sunny 45 minutes ago!” her mom complains aloud to the room.
“I don’t even know, but I hope we’re not stuck in here for too long!” yelled her littlee cousin, eager to get back into the water.
The rain pitter-patters on the windows like footsteps, Lauren looks around at everyone crowded around the window looking out into the mess.
She jumps up and says, “Are we really going to let this stop us?”
“We only get to be here once a year, now let’s make the best of it!”
Lauren runs out the door with the kids following close behind. She twirls around and around as the warm rain showers down. The kids are giggling, following in her footsteps. They run and play in the wet sand and the mud, the parents are looking down like what are you thinking? But we all know they’re jushappyy we’re happy. Anna looks up at the sky, smiling to herself. Sometimes you just got to make the best of things.

It was getting cold though; they were out there for a while.

“Okay kids, time to come inside. I made hot coco!”
Running up the stairs and inside everyone was sopping wet. They gulp down the hot chocolate, warming up from their littlee adventure. And sure enough, the glance out again to see the rain coming down lighter, eventually stopping all together. The clouds blown away by the wind, and just like in the mornings the lake slowly starts to get more and more populated again.

“YAAAAAAAYYYYYY!” scream the kids.
Lauren and the rest of the family do a littlee victory dance, everyone is content. This doesn’happyen very often. No one’s fighting, no one’s crying, no one’s complaining. Everyone is jushappyy that we’re here, together. And even a rainy day couldn’t bring us down! Lauren looks around and smiles, glancing around the room and out the window at the sun. The kids scramble out the door and down the stairs. It doesn’t even matter if it’s raining or sunny, we’ve proved that we can have fun regardless of the weather. Take that Mother Nature.