7749 Hummingbird Drive is a little old blue house that sits right on Sweetwater Lake. The front door of this little blue house is creaky and will nip at the back of your feet if you don’t move fast enough. Dark green ivy has inched its way onto the sides of the house and invaded the front lawn. Big windows encompassed by white shutters and bright flowers greet the warmth of the summer sun into the house. The tire swing in the front yard sways in the warm breeze as the sound of water crashing into the rocks on the shore, welcomes the family for the summer. This little blue house looked differently eight years ago and it’s all thanks to a man who was determined to make this house a place during the summer his family could escape the everyday busyness of life and its distractions. This is a story about my Dad and the lesson our family learned that summer.

The story begins in 2008. My parents decided that a lake house would be a great escape for our large family during the summer. My dad, the goal-oriented, driven leader he was, envisioned a place more than just a weekend getaway during the summer. He aspired for "family weekends" during the summer. This implied a weekend "off the devices," disconnected from the distractions of our busy lives and spending time with one another. In result, making our family stronger. This was a well thought out plan that had a long-term goal. The potential my dad saw in this house was not the way my siblings and I wanted to see it.

We wanted immediate satisfaction and fun. Instant reward with no sacrifice or hard work in return, we looked at life differently than our parents. We had no idea what kind of summer lay in front of us; all we saw was a body of water and the fun that was waiting for us. So as our car pulled onto Hummingbird Drive, six eagerly awaiting and overly excited kids in the back seat of the car were in for a disappointing surprise.

As a kid who wouldn’t be pumped to go to a lake every weekend? A getaway during the summer, where we could wake up in the mornings and the lake was our backyard. We couldn’t wait for the fun to begin. Little did we know, this was nowhere in our near future that summer. Instead of weekends spent learning to ski and tube behind a boat, we learned how to pull weeds from the yard of this abandoned house.

Instead of learning how to kayak or paddle board on the water, we spent the weekends painting rooms of this house different colors. Instead of mastering the skill of fishing or baiting a hook we mastered the skill of raking and bagging leaves that fell from the towering trees that surrounded this house. We worked tirelessly that summer, fixing the house that was suppose to be the place where we had endless hours of fun, but really was where our summer dreams went to die and hours of hard work were spent. As a reward for all of our hard work, at the end of each weekend, our parents treated us to ice cream at the local Dairy Queen in town. My chocolate and vanilla twist has never tasted sweeter than it did that summer.

The beginning of that summer my siblings and I began to question our parents' decision on the lake house. The work seemed endless, and we began to dread the weekends we would pile into the car and drive down, we knew what the weekend entailed and complained about it all the way there. But, gradually, we came to terms with the hard work and sacrifice we had to put into our “fixer upper” project in order to receive the fun we would have for summers to come. That summer, my siblings and I came to endure the meaning of hard work and sacrifice in order to gain reward.

As the years went on, the upkeep and preparation each summer became easier. This house taught us that life doesn’t come easy and we must persevere, be patient and work hard. The memories of the summers on Sweetwater are irreplaceable and I treasure them because they were made with my family. I am grateful for my dad’s dream in that little blue house eight years ago, and I am thankful for the lessons we learned that very first summer. The little blue house is where my family has created so many memories and laughs, a priceless reward that we worked hard for the summer we drove down Hummingbird Drive.