On our way to our family beach vacation, we stayed the night in Salisbury, North Carolina and had supper with my Uncle Larry and Aunt Jane.

Rounding out so many summer evenings watching 7 of our grandchildren compete on the diamonds, our 10-year-old twin granddaughters Kassie and Kelsey had plenty of fun playing on the majors softball league team Bomb Squad.

Our only true little leaguer this summer was Abram, who played on the Harrison Junior Baseball 9U team.

As you have probably figured out, we spent lots of fun days and evenings at various ballparks this year, from t-ball diamonds all the way up to college stadiums.

Our 7-year-old Lucy made her softball debut this summer in her hometown Harrison, Ohio league.

Our grandson Koda, who just finished kindergarten, played PeeWee baseball this summer.

Our youngest grandson Daniel, who just turned 5, made his baseball debut this summer playing in his hometown Harrison, Ohio's league.

Friends just do not get any better than this group with whom God has blessed me!

Brenda, Peggy, Amy, Linda, and I have been doing our girlfriends' lake getaway since 2011. We've missed some years and not everyone could come every year, but mostly the 5 of us have been able to block out a few days from our busy summer calendars to spend this precious time together.

From the archives...

2011. Our first girlfriends' getaway. Amy was missing...

In 2012, Amy and Peggy were both MIA. 

2021.

We skipped 8 years in there...Peggy and I were dealing with aging parents who needed us around, Amy was encouraging her fledglings to fly out of the nest, Brenda was helping with her grandbabies, Linda built a house and moved to northern Indiana, and of course the pandemic made getting together difficult. Life got crazy and the years slipped by before we realized it.

2022.

As we've gotten older (and hopefully wiser!), I think we all appreciate our friendship more and more.

So here's a few moments from the 2023 version of our getaway...

Our retreat, Brenda's lake house on Lake Jimmerson in northern Indiana...

Our first evening we went to nearby Shipshewana after dinner...

...for a musical.

The next day we spent cruising the lakes with Captain Brenda at the wheel...

Linda and Amy soaking up some rays... I did take a photo of Peggy, but her eyes were closed so I had to delete it. I'm sure she'll forgive me...

The lake was not busy at all, which suited us just fine!

Captain Brenda docked the boat perfectly...her husband Tim couldn't have done any better!

After the required afternoon nap, we did our little photo shoot...

Sorry Brenda, poor planning on my part! I should have jumped in behind Peggy instead of blocking your tiny little self! Otherwise, it's a cute photo of us...

Ice cream for the WIN! 

I'll spare you (and us!) the photos of our euchre games/homemade beauty spa treatments. But a good time was had by all!

We always have so much fun when we're together, and always worth the effort rearranging our schedules to make it happen. Looking forward to doing it again next summer!

Lake fun with the besties.

I may look calm, relaxed, and collected in this photo...well, actually I WAS at that moment...but what a wild ride we've had the last few months!

I'm SO FAR behind on my photo editing and blogging that I'm not sure where to even start catching up.

But never fear, I NEVER slowed down on my picture-taking!

Trip to the Holy Lands.

Grandsons' baseball.

Granddaughters' softball.

My nephew Wyatt's college baseball.

Vacation Bible School.

Lake getaway with my girlfriends.

College World Series.

Family beach vacation.

...just for starters...

So I'll start plugging away at getting caught up from the whirlwind of travel and activities. It's all been AMAZING and SO MUCH FUN!!! Not only do I want to share it with you all, but I want to document it for my own self. 

To kick it off, check out tomorrow's post.

What a crazy fun spring and summer!