An Interesting Day at the Lake

Over the weekend, we were in Louisville for my friend Joyce's wedding, so we decided to hang around and celebrate Jeff's 26th birthday by going to the lake on Tuesday. Going to the lake has always been one of my favorite family activities, and Jeff has come to enjoy it just as much. So we headed up to Patoka with my mom and dad for a day of fishing, swimming, and tubing.

We started out fishing and though the fish weren't flying into the boat as they often do, we still caught a fair number and had fun. (Although it wasn't so cool when one fish pooped on me. Eww. Gross.).

It was a really hot day--high 90s despite an original forecast that had it in the low 80s--so we had to go for a swim to cool off. I don't know if it's accurate to describe what we did as swimming, however, since it mainly consisted of jumping from the boat into the water over and over.



As we were swimming, a weird thing happened in that a flock of eight ducks flew down and landed right near us. They weren't at all intimidated for us and were clearly looking for a handout of food. We didn't oblige but that didn't keep them from hanging around for quite some time.



To end the day, we pulled out the tube for a spin around the lake. Jeff was up first and had a good time flying around the lake before getting thrown off and skimming right across the surface. We picked him up (none the worse for the wear) and I hopped onto the tube.




The ride was fun. I was coasting along, for the most part just flying over the water, nothing too rough.



Then, I'm not quite sure what happened but I hit a rough patch and flew off in the most awkward way possible, somehow ending up on the rope as it ripped across the water (and my face). My face was stinging but I didn't think it was much. I did reach up and notice my lip was bleeding, but I thought I'd just bit it as I flew off. As I got to the boat, however, everyone in it gasped and got very concerned about my eye. The rope had really done a number on my face. Luckily my eye itself was okay, but half my face was good and torn up and bruised. This is what I looked like when we got back to the dock...awesome boat hair included.
Looks a bit like I'm wearing war paint doesn't it?

I'm pretty sure this a birthday shot we'll always treasure.

Over the course of the evening and night it swelled more and bruised more and this is what my face looks like now, a day later. Isn't it pretty?
Luckily, it's more uncomfortable than painful. And luckily the swelling has gone done a bit since this morning, when I couldn't really open my left eye at all. And luckily, we're all done with weddings for another month. Hopefully by then you won't even be able to tell it ever happened.