Gagging at Lake Minitare

After a particularly hard afternoon Eric decided we should probably all get out of the house. We went up to Lake Minitare to do some fishing and s'more making.  Unfortunately the lake was so low all the good fishing spots were completely dried up.  The kids were content to run around, find shells, and dig in the sand.

I was fine with it too, until I noticed that the kids where building a weird looking sandcastle...

a really weird sandcastle...

wait...

WHAT IS THAT THING????

It was a giant smoked sausage someone left behind.  After much gagging on my part, and lots of hand sanitizer use on the kids part, we went up to make s'mores.

It was a fun, cold, strange trip.

Failing at Boating

Since I, insanely, brought my parents boat home while the cabin was being remodeled, we have had the pleasure of being able to enjoy puttering around on our small lake out in Minitare.  Last fall we used it several times, but since we have had such a LONG winter we still hadn't been able to use the boat by mid-May.  I looked at a calender and realized with dance and baptism coming up we only had 1 weekend left to use the great "banana" boat before I headed back up to Canada and left the boat.  Only one problem: we couldn't get the boat to actually start.

Eric thought he had it all figured out.  We bought a battery charger, charged said battery, and headed up to the lake to enjoy...

 playing in the boat while Eric tried to get the still not running boat to work.

 Eventually I left to go get a new fuse for the motor while everyone stayed at the shore.  The fuse ended up needing to be replaced, but still didn't fix the problem.  Throwing our hands up in despair we decided to just enjoy the rest of the day from the shore.

 Livi made sandcastles, destroyed them, then reformed them from the rubble.

 She also loved the game of "throw the ball in any direction but at daddy so he has to run through the water to get it before it floats away." Always a classic.

Ella and Ethan kept trying to get as far away from shore as possible before we would notice.  When I showed up I shuddered thinking how far they had actually gotten before Eric noticed, since I seemed to be yelling at them to come back when they were up to their chins (this is why they have a mom and a dad).

 It was a pretty hot afternoon and even Tonks ended up voluntarily going in the water just to cool off...

Although once the clouds came she did get a little shivery.

Luckily Livi was more than happy to cuddle (squeeze) Tonks the whole way home.  When my dad came out the next weekend he figured out it was a totally different fuse that also needed to be changed.  At least the boat worked when I finally got it back up to it's home.

Down By The Bay...or the really gross lake

A few weeks ago we were lucky enough to go with the Bagleys to Lake Minatare.  It has been drought conditions here, so the lake was a little lower and...stinkier than usual, but it was still a great time.

Eric and Chad took the kids out in shifts to ride around the lake.

While the  big kids took their turn on the boat Livi, Carter and McKay played in the murky water while Melissa and I tried to keep them away from the grosser sections of the shore.

Livi loved all the frolicking, but Carter got a little chilly.

How many adults does it take to start a fire?  3 adults, 2 of which are Scout leaders, and 2 wind blocks (one of which is the very manly princess towel around Eric's legs).

Our happy group enjoying hot dogs and S'mores roasted on the (eventually) roaring fire.

The D@#& Boat

Have you ever put off laundry so long the mountain of clothes before you is so intimidating you don't know where to start?  Hmmm, okay, me neither ha ha.  Well, I've been gone for so long I am now just getting to the backlog of pictures and memories.  This was a pretty awesome/hilarious trip, so I have lots of little memories I want to record.  Because I cannot be faced with this amount of work without immediately procrastinating, I am going to skip 95% of what I have to do and go directly to my experience with the "d@#& boat."

My siblings and I are all married and the inevitable hoards of kids are starting to follow.  It makes for a tight fit at the cabin, so my parents are remodeling/adding on so we can continue to all go at the same time, and I can continue to enrage/make cry/annoy my siblings.  Because the workers need the garage for power tools (and half the garage was rotted) the boat was going to be put in storage for the winter, which in Canada is basically Aug-May.  Dad offered to let us take the boat instead, and knowing my husband would die of happiness, I agreed to this plan.

What I hadn't really thought through was the fact I would be driving A BOAT across the country, with 3 little kids, by MYSELF!!!  By the time it came to tow the boat down to Idaho (long story) I was starting to think of it as the "stupid boat."  When we got to Idaho to meet Eric so he could help drive it had become the "dang boat."  By the 105th time we had to stop because of various straps flapping/weird noises/electrical checks or to fill up the incredibly shrinking gas tank, it had moved into "d@#& boat" territory.

Sitting in the drive-way, the boat had done nothing to change my mind, until yesterday Eric suggested we take the boat up to the lake.  It was a scorchingly hot day and I was so tired from yard work that being on the lake sounded good so we packed everything up and went boating.

I love the dang boat.