eagles mere

Well, since the boy hasn't done anything entertaining enough to warrant its very own post, and Katie requested a funny story about Derek, I have reached into my archives from last June. The story isn't entirely about Derek, but I find it entertaining nonetheless.

The story takes place at Eagles Mere, Pennsylvania, in the Townsend family lakehouse. Those in attendance included me, who you have all come to know and love; Derek, who at the time had not yet admitted that my charm and magnetism were really just too irresistible; Phil, who leads you to believe that he is the most laid-back person on the planet, only to surprise you with a long list of rather amusing particularities; and Melanie, who is committed to spending at least 80% of her time either laughing or making everyone around her laugh. Then there was Caitlin, the 9-year-old who tried her best to use her own charm and flirtatious abilities to win Derek's heart, and Jenny, Caitlin's older sister, who didn't particularly appreciate this newly-developed crush. And let's not forget Phil's parents, who sincerely thought that the best way to spend their vacation was entertaining a group of twenty-something engineers. They truly are special people.

The time spent at the lake was particularly pleasant, with the exception of the instance when Derek made me cry because I wasn't paying close enough attention during my sailing lesson. That situation was remedied, however, when I went sailing with Phil and fell out of the boat without his noticing. The majority of our time, however, was spent lying by the water, pretending that it was warm enough to be in swimsuits. We finished off the week with a rather vicious game of King of the Mountain, followed by a good hard laugh at Derek's inability to swim.

Highlights from the time spent in the lakehouse included drinking gallons of hot pink fruit drink, eating hotdogs with lots of mustard (because, according to Derek, "that's the thing about girls and hotdogs... they eat a lot of mustard"), discovering Derek's guitar playing and songwriting abilities, and completing countless numbers of country crafts that Phil's mom had brought along. (The glow-in-the-dark paint by numbers princess castle was my personal favorite.) I also forced Derek to participate in the Engineering Problem of the Day contest (since, technically, I was paying him to be there), which included calculating just how small the shrinkydinks will shrink, and figuring out how many people we could fit on one innertube without sinking it. Melanie and I dragged Derek into our game of Truth or Dare (which he didn't even pretend to enjoy), after which we played endless rounds of Speed Scrabble (which Phil didn't even pretend to enjoy.) During these Speed Scrabble games, we all learned that Derek is exactly nine years old, which Caitlin took as an indication that he was interested in her. My favorite moment was walking into my room, only to find Melanie hiding behind the dresser with her ear pressed against the wall because she was learning some "really juicy stuff" from Derek and Phil's conversation. After we finsihed eavesdropping, we retired to our beds to discuss the many crushes we had each had on different BYU engineers, and concluded that the fact that none of these crushes amounted to anything was no fault of ours, but merely a result of engineers being incredibly weird. We also took the opportunity to make fun of Derek for flirting with the eighty-year-old woman we met at church, and vowed to tease him about it as often as possible.

Overall, it was an enjoyable week, thanks to Melanie's ability to make anybody laugh at any time, and Derek, for graciously being the brunt of all jokes.