Lake Norris

We made our annual trek down to Lake Norris again this year.  I booked it in March and was lucky to find a weekend available in the beginning of August so that sports and activities had concluded and we were all ready for a quick getaway.  We stayed a couple of nights and spent two full days out on the water.  The kids all loved every second of it and glad we were able to spend the time as a family before school starts.

 

The kids were champs on the drive down.  What was supposed to be a five hour drive turned into an almost eight hour drive after we were stuck in traffic for a closed highway due to an accident.  I was holding my breath the entire time that we were stuck that Mairin wouldn't throw a fit about having to go to the bathroom but we lucked out and they all did so well.  The trip to the gas station to raid the candy aisle also helped I'm sure.  We got into town around 5:30, unloaded the car and headed to the marina for dinner and then straight to bed after a long day.

Day #1 we had this lovely party boat.  It was like an RV on water but the kids had so much fun on it.  Jumping off the side on the top level and going down the slide repeatedly for hours!

Mairin was mostly there for the snacks.

                       

On the second day, we had a pontoon boat which was more my speed and much more comfortable than the party boat.  We started our day at the cliff that Nolan had been eyeing and wanting to jump from.  He was nervous to jump off of it in front of a crowd so it was the perfect morning as he had it all to himself.  

More snacks.

We spent the rest of day #2 riding around, tubing, jumping in to swim, and stopping for ice cream.

This hair.  We let him grow it out over the summer (it has since been cut) and it was a little windblown from the boat.

Instead of driving home on Tuesday morning and spending the day in the car, we decided to drive home on Monday night and sleep in our own beds.  During the day, the guys were jackhammering into our concrete in the basement with a gas powered drill that let out lots of CO.  Suffice it to say, our early arrival did not allow the CO levels to decrease and we came home to levels at 150 (instead of 0).   So at 11:30p.m. we had several fire trucks come and many firefighters who put big fans all over the place to mitigate it.  Nolan and Quinn went down to neighbors to sleep.  Mairin was still passed out in the car but around 12:30 I gave up and went to the Shears to sleep in their basement with her.  Eric stayed back until they were done which was around 1:00 in the morning and then he joined us.  So thankful for great neighbors and thankful that our CO detectors were working correctly.

Not the best way to come home but we still made great memories in Tennessee and now will also remember this exciting event as we arrived home.