Weiss Lake (a.k.a. Our Weekend with Noah)

I’m going to do summer in reverse, it seems. Less than a week before we went to the beach, we went to Weiss Lake with our fabulous friends. This trip was a repeat of our trip last summer, which was so much fun we decided it must be done again. This time, however, we decided to do a little reenactment of the story of Noah. We like to disciple all the time, especially on vacation. It was sweet of God to give us that opportunity. Noah should thank his lucky stars (except that he probably didn’t believe in lucky stars) that he was only stuck on that ark with a few hundred (or was it thousand?) animals instead of seven bored kids.

Before we entered the ark, we stopped for lunch and went to the Imagination Place to let the kids run off some energy. Well, little did Kerrie and I know that our admission would include a tour of the Gone with the Wind exhibit at the Center for Cultural Arts. We can now die in peace since we have seen the Gone with the Wind underwear. And I was completely unaware that this movie has been remade in numerous other countries. I was a little disturbed, for some reason, at the Japanese people dressed up in antebellum gear and the Asian lady with her face painted black who was undoubtedly supposed to be Mammy. I can only hope they offer that one on Netflix.

When we finally pulled ourselves away from that riveting exhibit, we headed to the lake. Once we arrived, it seemed that our kids’ swimsuits were attached to a generator that produced thunder and lightning whenever they donned them. We figured it would just be a little while before these passing showers passed on by. We couldn’t have been more wrong. It was more of a sitting and dumping shower. That little shower sat on us for seven hours, dumping 5-8” inches of rain on the map dot where we were. It seemed that we might be using the life jackets we brought in a way we hadn’t planned on.

Ever the optimists, we figured the next morning it would be back to the typical Alabama summer. However, it appears we chose the wrong weekend for summer activities. We’ve always said we’d love to visit Chestnut Bay Resort in the fall, and now we know pretty much what it would be like, aside from the fall foliage. It ended up being lovely weather for going for a walk or sitting on the porch and enjoying the scenery, but not such great weather for swimming and kayaking. Kids have a way of not minding if they’re on the brink of needing treatment for hypothermia, though, so they swam anyway. It was us grown-ups who were big chickens and chose to sit and watch. Okay, Chris got in, but we all know he’s a kid at heart.







So there was a lot more game playing, chalk drawing, and scooter riding than we'd planned.


There is one thing that did go as planned. The food. What is a vacation without good food? Chef Amy whipped up some paninis, Kerrie graced us with her specialty – taco salads – and the Godfather treated us to some pizza pies. We may have been in danger of floating away, but float we would, thanks to all the extra calories.

Fortunately, the resort had some amazing activities planned. The first morning we all got glitter tattoos, because, other than food, tattoos are the other things you need to complete any trip. And glitter just makes it that much better. With Chris and Tom sporting their intimidating dragon and shark, we knew no Chestnut Bay thugs would be messing with us. They considered making them permanent, but decided maybe it wasn’t the way to make their employers happy since they aren’t motorcycle mechanics or professional surfers. (Not that those are the only people who have tattoos. I have friends with tattoos!)

Some other fun stuff included sand art (because who doesn’t want to bring sand home with them?) and a rockin’ street party. Chestnut Bay will never be the same after my rendition of the Macarena and Kerrie’s Cha Cha Slide. Clearly, we had to draw on our wild partyin’ past. I am fully aware that in approximately 3-4 years, our children will not think it is socially acceptable to dance with their moms in public, so we had to get lots of dancing in on this trip.

(For some reason, there's a giant space here. I can't figure it out, so this is my low-tech solution. Imagine a very soothing female voice saying, "Please continue scrolling until you reach the next photograph. Have a nice day.")

When we regrettably had to leave our summer homes and return to our city homes, we had to find some fun activity to make the transition a little less painful. And this is where the real highlight of the trip occurred. For lack of any better ideas, we went to Noccalula Falls. Naturally, this day it was hot and sunny. The train ride is always nice, as are tormenting the caged lion and squeezing through Fat Man’s Squeeze.

But nothing could top the action going on in the goat and sheep pen. Thankfully, our children were completely oblivious to the love triangle playing out before them, but naturally, our husbands were not. After the excited goat and the girl goat were broken up and excited goat and the jealous goat had words (and horns) and began to go their separate ways, Chris and Tom thought they’d try to get them riled up again.

I believe this picture depicts Chris trying to come onto the lady goat and arouse the jealousy of her sugar daddy.

When the sugar daddy goat apparently doesn’t see Chris as much of a threat, Tom tries to talk it up.

I can only imagine the thoughts going through the goats’ minds. ‘Cause I’m pretty sure they’d be more mature than the thoughts going through some other minds there.

I don’t know where to go from here. All in all, the trip was a success. We had lots of fun and now I can identify with Noah in a whole new way when I read Genesis. And Chris and Tom can evidently identify with Noah’s animal friends.