After a month at the lake we still aren’t completely unpacked, but we are having a great time working on projects, visiting with east coast people, cooking, and exploring the area (both by foot and by water!) We continue to work remotely four days a week and have settled into a decent schedule. The lake toys have started showing up too which lets us take full advantage of the great spring weather we’ve been having!
Unpacking
We were fortunate that everything in our Pod appeared to arrive undamaged! We quickly transferred everything out of the Pod and into the garage so we could take our time unpacking after the container got taken away. It was exciting to have tables, chairs, and kitchen tools again!

While the house was a wreck for the first week, we have since been able to make the house feel more like a home. A defining moment for Emily was when we had space to bring the couch into the living room, finally giving us a place to relax!

Activities
We’ve taken two short trips to Richmond so far. On the first trip we ran some errands (in the ‘big city’) and met up with some of Andrew’s High School friends. We also got to pick up some ice cream from Ray’s and enjoy it in the park!

On the second trip Andrew picked up a replacement to his old Hyundai Accent that he sold in California: a new Toyota Tacoma! it has already come in handy bringing packing materials and lawn waste to the dump, as well picking up other big items and bringing them to the house (like grills and kayaks!)

Another chore that started taking up a lot of time in April was mowing the grass. In LA we ‘mowed’ our tiny front lawn with a weed wacker, but here it takes a significant amount of time with a real lawnmower to get done. Andrew even stalled the mower on the first cut because the grass was already so tall! If only there were some way to automate this…

Emily’s mom came down to visit for a long weekend and helped us make more progress on various projects around the house, including a lot of gardening. We also took a break one night to drive to Charlottesville with her for an outdoor Carbon Leaf concert!

Cooking
Now that our kitchen has been unpacked we’ve gotten to do a lot more cooking. Even though our dining room table is assembled we still prefer to eat on the back porch, overlooking the lake, from our camping table and chairs. Eventually we will need to get some real patio furniture so guests can join us! Whether it’s morning coffee, an afternoon hammock, or sunset dinners the back porch has been an amazing part of this house.

We left our old combination grill and smoker in LA so we’ve had to replace them after the move. At James Montgomery’s recommendation we picked up a recteq smoker and hope to one day be able to put it to as good of a use as he does! We put a pork shoulder on (so we could have sandwiches the following week for lunch) but also tried smoking beef ribs for the first time. Compared to our old, leaky charcoal smoker this pellet smoker definitely feels like cheating!

Boating
When we first got to the lake we were heading over to Emily’s Aunt and Uncle’s house to borrow their kayaks and enjoy their cove on nice days. After doing some research we figured out what type and size would be right for us and went into Roanoke with the truck to pick up two new Kayaks!
Since then, we’ve been exploring up and down our little ‘arm’ of the river. Emily has been able to find several different spots that are extremely popular with the local turtle population, including a sunny log across the cove from us!

We also managed to acquire an old sailboat from someone on Craigslist! It turns out the previous owner lived less than a mile away, just on the other side of the marina, so he was able to tow it back to our dock after we bought it. It seems like a great size boat for this lake (just over 14 feet) and we are looking forward to plenty of adventures on it!

The boat was able to hold Andrew, Emily, and Emily’s Mom all at once (although it was tight). With the crew of three we felt comfortable putting up the jib sail and were able to really zip around the entry to our cove until the wind died down.
Wow, the lake life looks really enjoyable! For your lawn just FYI https://www.husqvarna.com/us/products/robotic-lawn-mowers/
😉
Oh man, that robot lawnmower is tempting!
Best smoker ever and it looks good on you!