Samantha, still Eleven

Samantha wanted a day at the lake for her birthday. We tried three different days to get there, but, we just couldn't get a plan together. As I was taking with some Moms about our plan I learned a little something about lakes. Did you know that lakes breed bacteria and can become unhealthy when a few factors come together. Lately we have had temperatures over 100 degrees for twenty-some straight days. Hot, hot. We also have had no substantial rainfall for any of that time. So, the lake we wanted to visit had no fresh-water feed; it was essentially a five acre puddle. Mix all this together and you get problems. The lakes are known to spread a little condition called swimmer's itch, which you can read more about here, but, it's a nasty little thing, so be warned. Yuck.

So, we decided against the risk and called it all off. Again. Samantha took it well. This poor girl, so looking forward to spending a day with her friends and family, denied again. The more we thought about it, the more we realized, let's just throw a party anyway. I called and texted our friends and said for everyone to come swim at our friend's pool - the wonderfully generous friends who opened their beautiful backyard pool to friends on certain days of the week! We kept it a secret from Samantha, and got some of her favorite food together - watermelon, skittles, veggies and dip.

Success! We had a great afternoon beating the heat in properly chlorinated water - no little nasties to invade our skin!

watermelon candles ::: first piece of "cake"

watermelon smiles!!