labour day at cultus lake/swimmer's itch is not my friend

labour day was a day at cultus lake.  i drove to mom and dad's and then went with them out to the lake.  me and douglas moved three picnic tables together, mom draped her beloved long lasting picnic table cloth over them, and dad took it upon himself to whip the many wasps with his towel.  we ate yummies.  mom and dad and i brought roasted chicken, potato salad and buns.  awesome buns, if i say so myself, but i do pride myself in picking out a tasty morsel of bread flesh.  other people bbqed meats.

eventually we decided to go swimming.  it was my first time at cultus.  i was a cultus newbie if you will.  cultus has a network of jutting docks for people to jump off of.  i deigned to wade in and swim out because that is what i am all about.  most jumped off the dock because that is what they are about.  be what you are about mmkay?

jordan, evan, douglas, josh and caleb had a contest to see who could go the farthest underwater.  jordan won by faaaaar.  pfft.  then they started throwing the blow up alligator in the water and jumping on it, which was pretty hilar.  i stayed in the water the whole time.  i wished so much that i had a water proof camera so that i could record the beautiful family scenes i saw.  i tried to take pictures with my mind.  after a while i decided to get out, get my camera and take pics from the docks before all the people left.  so that's what i did.

when i got back, only the brothers (new generation) and maria, mary and their friend were on the dock.  i asked the boys if i could take some pics of them jumping off the dock.

 josh asked if he could do a swan dive.  i was all, ya sure, do whatever you want.  do any wild movement.  caleb said he would do a cannon ball and i was all, great.  so i counted them off and took my clicks.  well that's when there was a huge splat and near by people groaned and cringed.  belly flop.  when i checked my camera i saw that i had captured josh in graceful swan belly flop form just before he hit the water.  this made us all laugh a lot.

another one. nice form douglas.

 the moment of hitting the water.  i think it looks weiwd.

this one is hilar to me.  douglas completely upside down, josh's debonair lean--hilar. 

then i spent some time with the girls.  mom says mary and maria have the exact same legs.  just sayin.

mary dives.

 maria had this habit of making pig noses as she jumped.  seriously.  it was not the only time.  that's what she's about, and that's ok.

i like the patterns on the water.

 strange, i know.  that's girls for you.  wild and crazy.  so her top half is having some sort of seizure but i think her legs look cool--the light, the muscles--something.

i love this one.

i love the way the water is captured in these pics of maria.  tracy said she looked like a little otter.

 when left the dock i found jordan and tracy posing on the beach so naturally i clicked a shot of them.  then they confessed that they had hoped that if they stood there like that, that i would take a pic of them.  well played tracy, well played.

we sat around talking and guessig where douglas would go on his mission and eating watermelon and stuff.

 at one point delanie couldn't find the baby.  just then an indo-canadian man came across the bridge holding him and she rushed over to collect him.  when she came back she had a funny look on her face.  "did you see that?" she asked me.  i hadn't.  she related that she had taken eli from the man, thanking him and he held open his arms and said "huggie?"  so she had to hug him.  unexpected and kind of awkward.  still gives me a chuckle when i think about it.

evan and mary cozy up.

full pic or crop?

 for some reason when i see this pic, i think "european child".  it's the sunnies, perhaps.

on the way home we got ice cream.  i had the unusual combo of tiger and caramel pecan fudge.  dad chose maple walnut which i predicted.  pat-pat on my back.

tuesday afternoon i began to notice itching all over my body.  i found that i had spots all over.  they GREW IN ITCHINESS.  i endured 3 days of intense itchiness.  the spots all eventually pushed out blister heads.  itchy.  ITCHY.  apparently cultus is known for swimmer's itch.  unfortunately i looked up swimmer's itch and unfortunately i discovered that a parasite's larvae burrow under your skin shortly after you get out of the water.  then they die.  then you have an allergic reaction because you have dead parasite larvae in your skin and there is something your body doesn't like about that. delanie said no one in her family had it but evan and his kids got it, which made me feel better.  apparently it's in the shallow waters, so people who wade are more at risk. cultus is a beautiful lake with lovely water, but i don't know if i could ever swim in it again.