Treasure Hunters - Family Edition

It's hard to know where to start on this particular post. Do I begin by describing my incredible mother-in-law, who has the strength and grace to endure the death of her husband, both parents, and her oldest son with a press-on, can-do attitude while working full time, caring for two dependent sons and still being the prototypical game-playing, cookie-baking Grandma? (Did I already mention the woman is INCREDIBLE?) Or should I start with my playful, only recent, just-daydreaming-because-it's-fun sudden desire to own a lake house where we can take our children and their friends on the weekends to avoid the eventual pitfalls of heightened weekend temptations?

Maybe I'll start with Easter Sunday. It was SO RELAXING and fulfilling to go to Grandma's (my MIL) house for our traditional holiday gathering of my husband's family. This includes my husband's mother, his two unmarried brothers, his married sister and brother-in-law and their four children (three grown and a girl my daughter's age), my MIL's sister and her husband and the five of us. Plus the girlfriend, boyfriend and fiance of my nieces and nephew. Confused yet? Anyway, we love our time of getting together for holidays at Grandma's house because there are no expectations but hugs. We eat, the ladies gab or play games, the men watch sports and fall asleep on the couch, the kids play billiards and jump on the trampoline, and then we eat again. It's heavenly.

And though we all live in various directions on the outskirts of a large metropolitan area, we just don't get to see each other all at once like this very often. So we exchange more detailed accounts of life since we last saw each other and make plans for more fellowship between certain ones of us. You know, typical family stuff. Until I mentioned my lofty little wish. Someone had asked about our new neighborhood and school and how we were enjoying all the changes lately in our lives and somehow we got around to discussing the dwindling possibilities for friends for our children who actually, um, behave and encourage rather than tempt and put down. And how we absolutely cherish the good friends that they do have and wouldn't it be nice if you could just isolate them on a island for the weekend and set them free with kites and sloppy sandwiches and boogy boards and let them be kids?! And the whole thing was really just so tongue-in-cheek and light hearted and "Aw shucks.....don't you wish they could just experience 'the good ole' days?"

UNTIL.

My sweet MIL forms an invisible light bulb over her head and runs off into her office. She returns a couple of minutes later with a yellowed piece of neatly folded paper and a look of deep thought on her face. "You know. I had forgotten ALL about it, but when you guys were very, VERY little, your father purchased a piece of land on Lake U. and I know I we have the deed in there somewhere, but here is a map of where it's located. Do you think it's anywhere near the water?" She hands the paper to my husband and I and we study it with my BIL and SIL looking on behind us. We decide to go the computer and use GOOGLE Earth to try to match the lay of the land to the lot lines. Instantly, we find a matching street name. This was not expected at all since the lots located on the map were apparently the first construction in that area and ours was purchased before my husband's birth and all.

Now, let me just explain a bit here that I've been toying with this whole idea recently purely for my personal entertainment, never expecting to actually really pursue it. And I never ask for material things in prayer. There is no intention to sound pious here; I just don't need to ask for material things because God has been SO GOOD to us and I have so many more pressing matters that I fall asleep practically begging for those before I've ever had a chance to get around to thinking about that stuff. But the other night, I did feel sort of supernaturally led to just share with God my silly little wish for a private place for my family to escape whenever we wanted to enjoy ourselves without the world's influence. I never specified that I hoped we could own it. I just casually let God know it would be such a blessing to have a place to occasionally recharge from the almost daily exposure to innappropriate examples and naughty billboards.

So we match up the general location of the two lots my FIL bought 40 years ago for an astounding $250! And it's AT THE POINT OF THE ONLY ISLAND IN ONE OF THE BIGGEST LAKES IN OUR STATE ONLY 2 HOURS AWAY!!! Can you here my screaming? AHHHHH! And my amazing, sweet, intelligent, completely crazy MIL had "just forgotten all about it!" (Let me interject here that this officially constitutes a pattern. On another occasion, she was reminded her husband had purchased 10 acres in a mid-size town that turned out to have a gas station on it in a prime location. This cracks me up! I was blessed in every way for the MIL I get to have, but has she lost her fun-loving mind?! And I have always heard stories of how my FIL like to "dabble" in entrepreneurial efforts, but it seems he did all right with it after all!)

The funny thing is, I have had no problem keeping my anticipation in check. We are all planning to make a trip out there to scout out the EXACT location (we could only narrow it down to 2 rural neighborhoods) together in a couple of weeks. We also found out my FIL's brother also owns half the property, so we will invite him to go with us and hear his rightful input as well. It may turn out to be a terrible location. Forty years later, who knows what has become of the development? But just the fact that we have been given this fun little extended family adventure is thrilling! I really haven't had to force myself not to care how it actually turns out. I just love the opportunity to hunt down this fun mystery together. And if we find out we own some lake front property that's actually usable, then you can bet I'll be singing Hallelujah even underwater. At least on the weekends - when I'm not otherwise helping my husband to ransack his mother's office!