Ahhh! Summer Refreshment . . . .

Before Annie left for her return to Seattle yesterday, we took a dip in Lake Pend Oreille at one of our favorite spots.

Used to be this place on the north shore of the lake with the spectacular view of Schweitzer Mountain could almost be called our "own private Idaho," but it's been discovered.

Of course, when the place was invaded by all of three other parties of people during the hour or so that we were there, that's a crowd for us.

Nice people, though.  

One couple brought along Wicket, their Pomeranian pooch.   Owner Jeremy came over with Wicket on leash and asked us if we minded if he turned her loose.

"Don't know if you like dogs," he said. Well, little did he suspect that he was talking to a bunch of dog crazies.

No problem, we said, so he returned to his section of beach.  Later we could see that Wicket had her own inner tube and that Wicket was a pure delight to her parents. 

Eventually, a woman and two children strolled along the pathway with their tubes.  They stopped, looked around and decided that an extension of our section of beach would be just fine for them. 

We were about to go anyway, so it was no problem to us.  

Turns out she was here visiting from MINN-e-SOTa.  

Then, it turned out that her daughter, who came later in a kayak with her hubby, works at the hospital and lives less than a mile from us over on North Kootenai Road.

A new friendship hatched between Ashley and me. 

The water was lovely yesterday as Willie, Debbie and Annie passed a football back and forth, aiming it toward the hole in their respective inner tubes.  

Annie later offered me her tube, which led to several minutes of total relaxation, floating around the lake and soaking up the July sun. 

Twas a nice and refreshing way to end a week, filled with emotion and activity.  

Later, Willie drove me past Mother and Harold's grave, where he saw that emotions are still very raw, as I'm sure they will be for some time. 

A somewhat regular routine begins this morning, and when afternoon comes, reality will strike once more when I don't direct that car first to Sand Creek Conoco to purchase a chocolate treat for Mother (she loved those Reece's wafer bars) and then on to Life Care for the afternoon visit. 

Mother always looked to the future---the next thing, especially if it involved fun.  

I'll take a cue from her, gradually plot my new course in life and make sure that whatever direction it goes, there's a positive purpose and that there's fun. 

That's the way our Mother would want it.