Faith, Love, and Cowboy Boots: What is your favorite MEMORY?

My favorite memory is my childhood summers at the lake. My Grandma and Papa and her sister and husband (Doodie and Monk) built a lake house on Lake Gaston in 1985. So literally every summer in my memory was spent at this house. I would love going up there, me and my cousins would play from sun up to sun down, and then after dinner, the adults would play a card game called canasta. I learned that game at a very young age.

One of my favorite memories is a time when my cousin Kris and I were playing a canasta game against my Papa and cousin Joe. We were very young and wanted to "go wild" a play where you bet all you have on the chance to have 7 wild cards. We were struggling and my Papa felt bad for us, so he said "son, I'd try to put something on the board instead of worrying about going wild so much". I knew we were doomed, when it was Kris' turn, I said "We're doing pretty bad aren't we?" and he said "Not if we are going out we're not". Not only had we "gone wild", we had used all our cards and went out, leaving Papa and Joe holding a handful of cards!

I actually almost lost my ring finger because of my cousin Kris. We were playing house and we got married, so he tied a rubber band on my finger. My finger was solid black by the time we went to the lake to swim and luckily we did so that our moms would see it and yank the band off. So I still have all 10 of my fingers! :)

We still go to the lake house today. Although my Grandma is the only surviving member of the original four owners, our families have grown and there is a new generation of children to make memories here. I hope that this house is around for my children, because it is there that I feel the closest to my Papa, and I know that if my children are able to grow up here, they will feel close to him too :)