nostalgia wednesdays: the OBKB lodge

one of my favorite pictures EVER from the early days at the lake

(no clue what we were doing!) 

Since I was incubating, my family has had a lake place, fondly referred to as the OBKB Lodge. My mom was about my age when she and my dad went in with her brother and their parents on a "weekend place" in south Georgia. Now that I am that age, it boggles my mind to think of being a)married, b)pregnant, and c)a dual homeowner. I can barely afford ONE place right now, not to mention two. And don't even get me started on the whole married/pregnant thing. Let's just say that's a heck of a long way off.

But I'm so glad that somehow my parents had it way more together than I do at this age, because the lake house has become the crux of our family gatherings for decades. When my sister and I were little, and our family still lived in Georgia, we'd be down here every weekend with our cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Now, it's become more of a compound than just a lake house, since my grandparents built their own place next door to the original lake house and retired here a few years ago, and my mom's second brother and his wife moved down here full time, too.

Every time we come to the lake, and turn in to the neighborhood where our house is, I remember how my sister and I would be SO EXCITED that we were finally allowed to take our seat belts off for the last mile to the house. The weekends were always a blur of my grandma's great cooking, endless hours swimming in the lake, and the cousins always getting in trouble for staying up late talking in the room where we shared a set of bunk beds. 

We've long since graduated from wearing swimmies and playing with American Girl dolls, but we still come back here at least a few times a year for the big holidays. Our already big family is slowly expanding, but it seems like yesterday that we would squeal as my (now-married) cousin Matt would grab mud off the floor of the lake and hurl it at the girls.  

Although our lives have all changed one way or another since the OBKB Lodge was first built, it is still a place of spotty (at best) cell phone service and minimal internet connectivity (aka a slow connection at my grandparents' house, next door to the lodge). When you come to the lodge, you eat, you sleep, and you talk. While that used to drive me a bit crazy, I've become so much more thankful for the chance to check out and relax since I moved to DC.

Anyways, I'm on dinner duty tonight, and I have meatballs and sauce to attend to back at the main lodge. So, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Hope you're surrounded by as much love, good food, and nostalgia as I am right now.