We began the day by inventorying the empty bottles and cans from the night before. I’ll also warn you now that there are a ton of pictures from Day Two, and more importantly, several videos at the bottom of the post.

We hit the lake early and often, just like the bar and the coolers.

Caroline and Jeff swam out to the platform and back.

Uncle Sparkles explains financial modeling to Aly. Aly responded with “Oh.”

Caroline joined the kiddie pool group when her reservation was called. Which is likely what began her progression down the road to swimmer’s itch. Apparently, geese crap, and apparently that’s a bad thing.
The king of the swim dock competition resumed, and Sparkles quickly shamed the other competitors into leaving with their tails between their legs. Dave then celebrated by posing on the deck.

Dave and Abbey were kind enough to take the childrens for a ride in the rowboat – everyone had their turn on the oars.

When we went inside for lunch, we discovered that Teddy had been happily laying on top of the large ice table the whole morning. Teddy, +1. We did dock him a half-point for not preparing lunch for the group.

Drinks and lunch gave us plenty of energy to attack the lake with renewed vigor with some more manly wrestling. First Douglas had to demonstrate something about his body, though I can’t recall exactly what he wanted to show with this:

We then got as much of the group as possible onto the swim platform, which was more than adequate to support our group, don’t you think?

Seriously, that thing was so swamped that the slightest movement in any direction would send people flying off the opposite corner, which made it quite fun and exciting.

After that, the peacocks strutted, because that’s what Karate Kid Peacocks do.

The group spread out, with some drying out on the dock while others played in the lake.

Sparkles and Jazzy took the rowboat out for a romantic ride around the neighborhood, to the sound of catcalls and inappropriate comments from the peanut gallery.

Sure to shock you

With people from Michigan and Ohio, it took us this long before any euchre was played, a new record for certain.

Ben foolishly allowed me to take this picture of him, which will almost certainly show up at his graduation party in a few years.

The Daily Schedule

We finally established a daily schedule, with David scribing the contributions onto the chalkboard:

David got an early start on the 10pm activity, using “Hammock and Rally” as his version of “Boot and Rally.” It’s rare to see David not smiling. Doug took a meeting from his new office as well.

Family. Important to our family.

We had some awesome Walloon General Store pizza for dinner, and then gathered around the fire ring for family drinks and forty minutes of Power Hour beer shots. Several people were occupied at times with the feeding of small childrens, but other responsible adults were happy to help with the filling and feeding of beer shots.

In wholly appropriate Walloon tradition, some Baker children may or may not have snuck a sip during these festivities. First, she does this:

Then she looks like this:

For reasons, which I cannot clearly recall, Sparkles decided to perform his impression of a turtle.

Caroline was not impressed.

And then Ben earned a token.

Without being requested to do so, Ben showed incredible intelligence and initiative for his tender years.

Let’s just reflect on that for a moment

Okay, we can move on now.

It was time to make a fire, so Gus was tasked with breaking one particular small stick (definitely not a branch).

Despite that weak sauce, we eventually started a fire with the help of the childrens and everyone enjoyed ridiculousness around the fire.

And now for our feature event.

Pictures don’t always tell the whole story. Luckily, videos do, and I have several for today.

Watch for the Sparkles flair at the end:

My personal fave: