Hot Wings and Hot Wheels

This past weekend we visited family and friends at the lake.  As always, we thoroughly enjoyed the activities, company, and food!  There has been lots of activity at the late recently, mostly due to the recent tractor purchase mom and dad made.  If there is an outdoor job that requires any kind of muscle at all, the tractor is the machine of choice.  I didn't realize there was so much that could be done with a tractor!  In general, there are a LOT of vehicles at the lake.  Jordan got to counting on our way home and realized that he had driven 8 different vehicles/machines in one weekend and that's not counting our own car!

Top Left: Scott's fancy new "office"!  Isn't it pretty!  It was cool to learn about the bells and whistles on this truck.  The display panel had apps just like a phone so it was pretty impressive.  He also got a nice bedliner to protect it from dinks and scratches.  In this pic Jordan is moving the truck out of the way (while grinning ear to ear).

Bottom Right: Five grown mean staring at the engine of Scott's new truck.  It's hard to understand to that level of interest...until mom and I get around dishes.

Top Right and Middle Right: Jordan and I went down to the "beach" to see some of the tractor work being done and I thought I would test my driving skills in a standard, you know, just to keep them fresh.  I delayed learning this particular skill for a solid decade, but a few years ago I managed to learn how to drive a standard vehicle in this happy little Jeep.  I'm actually really glad that I got to learn on the Jeep at the lake.  The lake is full of different terrains so that environment offers plenty of variety to practice on (uphill, downhill, rocky, smooth, sand, steep boat ramp, etc.)  And the Jeep isn't very finicky (at least I don't think so).  It's hard to hurt the Jeep so it made it a lot less intimidating.  At any rate, the beach practice was fun and I didn't stall out even once!

Bottom Left: Dad burned a little fuel and kicked up some dust on the 4 wheeler.  That thing is a lot of fun!

And that brings us to the tractor... 

Dad's interest in tractors spiked a neighborhood man-call of sorts and now it seems like everyone has a new tractor!  I laughed when I caught the sight of two tractors passing on our little lake road (dad is on the left).  Insert a Tim Allen grunt.  Aruuugh!

Dad put the tractor to work ripping out some dead trees for their neighbors.  It was actually very entertaining to watch.

Jordan helped out but the manual labor involved was almost eliminated with the muscle of the tractor!

As I mentioned before, there is no shortage of tractor work around the lake; it's almost fun for the boys I think!

Above, Scott and Dad were removing trees from the beach.  Since the water has been low for so long, trees have been allowed to take root and grow to a substantial size.  If When the water finally comes up, those trees will be a problem for boats so they really need to come out.  Sounds like a job for the tractor to me!

Top: A few posts ago I mentioned that a pool was going up.  Well, we missed the construction but it's up and ready to rock!  They decided to fill it with lake water so it doesn't look that appealing but don't worry, the water tested clean and will clear up after it's chlorinated.

Bottom:  Abby got pretty excited about something happening outside (she's a different pup at the lake) and Jordan snapped this picture of us girls on the golf cart. 

Here are some pictures of the pool for you guys.

Saturday night we had a yummy treat for dinner!  We made homemade chicken wings!  I've never seen so many wings in my life but they were amazing!  Mom sliced up a bunch of delicious veggies to go with the wings and everyone had a great meal.  Uncle Tony has become an expert wing cooker and rivals my Uncle Tom's skills up in NY at the Ship N' Shore!  

Sunday Jordan and I got an early start from the lake and attempted to get some chores/errands done around the house.  Just as the sun was going down, I really wanted to get my succulent plants potted so we decide to do that before dinner.  Jordan found a whole bunch of succulent plants on sale so we purchased some unique little vessels to plant them in (tea cups, small bowls, etc.).

They turned out really well so I took several new plants to work and put a few on my counter top.  Abby was really interested in the whole processes as if I was invading her backyard.

Hope you all are having a great week!  Happy Autumn!