When Leslie and John Mills moved to Lake Martin five years ago, they pulled their daughter, Grace, and her friends around Parker Creek on a tube behind the boat, but the girls longed for more adventure. They asked Grace’s father to tie the tube to the dock, so they could jump off of it into the lake. That was such a hit that Mills anchored a few inflatables off the waterfront, so the girls would have a variety of lake toys always at the ready.

“It just grew from there,” Mills said. “It got bigger and bigger every year.”