And then of course there was my cousin's open house which nearly rivaled our wedding with its tent of catered food, a three-tiered cake, a photo booth, a sacrificial pinata, paddle boats, and to top it all off, a bouncy house. After watching the kids behead the donkey pinata and after stuffing our bellies with tacos and more cake than I have ever eaten in my life, we decided to take the paddle boat out on the lake and watch the sun set behind the trees.
As for the rest of the evening -- lets just say there were a bunch of teen-aged kids, fresh out of high school, hanging out by the lake...and... well I'll just let my cousins tell you the rest of that story.
We had lots of fun: eating way more than we should, getting fro-yo with my cousin, learning about "bombsicles," and of course, just seeing and being with family.
It's where we spent most our summers growing up, and as we have moved from city to city, place to place, house to house, it has been the one constant -- the place that has always been there -- the backdrop to so many family memories old and new. I hope that one day, if we ever have kids that they have the chance to spend summers by the lake.