Boat Drinks

OK.... so all we had was Diet Coke and no Lucky Beer, but it was another great day on the lake. The kids all tubed and played in the sand/water, I skied, Brian drove like a pro and Mary helped all of us out, even acting as Faith's bed on the boat ride back to the dock. It took us one hour to get on the water- 60 minutes from our front door to sitting on the bow heading toward the beach.Too cool. We've already got it down to a science- from the packing of the cooler, loading of the boat, launching, driving, etc... all the way to the cleaning at the end of the afternoon.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Once again I am reminded of the importance of flexibility in this life. It's been quite a week- professionally speaking. Wednesday night I received an email from my principal for next year (I had signed a contract in April for a 2nd grade teaching position at a charter school in Eagle) stating that the State Commission of Charter Schools had voted unanimously to revoke the charter of our school. Trying not to panic, I did some research and found the audio transcripts of all of the previous year's commission meetings ( hours of fun entertainment! ) and found out the school was given a list of deficiencies way back in April. There were several meetings in May and June, then at the July meeting earlier this week, the commission gave the news that they were voting to revoke the charter. To make a long, long story very short, let's just say that after speaking with the Deputy Superintendent of Idaho (luckily I know him pretty well from my job this year at Apangea and was able to call him directly) I found out more details about the school and its leadership and I decided to resign my position and stay at Apangea to help with implementation for another year. As many of you know, I was dying to get back to the classroom, so this was definitely a blow for me at first. I spent a few hours yesterday feeling sorry for myself, but after a relaxing date night last night (Thanks, Mary!) and a day at the lake with the kids today, I am feeling 100% better. I keep reminding myself that I have a long teaching career in front of me. And Brian keeps reminding me of how much I truly respect the product that I am promoting, the people I work with, and how much more flexible my schedule is with this job.

Considering I had spent all day Tuesday and Wednesday interviewing candidates for my replacement, I had to kind of cow-tow back to my boss and ask for my job back. He was so supportive. In fact, everyone at Apangea was GREAT and not only told me I could have my job back without any hesitation, but also told me how happy they are that I am staying. Unfortunately this means I will have to go back to Pittsburgh for training the first week of August. Luckily I really like my colleagues- in fact my boss is probably one of my closest friends here- but being gone for 5 nights will be rough, especially considering I am going to be gone 3 nights this week for a training in Idaho Falls.... Brian gets another opportunity to shine as Super Dad :)

LAX

Lacrosse is a sport that is gaining in popularity all over the U.S. But is HUGE here in the Boise area. We have friends who's children have been playing for years and it's a big deal (he's choosing his High School based on where he'll have the opportunity to play Varsity LAX as a Freshman). Jake and Tanner watch college lacrosse on TV sometimes and like to play up in their room.

We signed Jake up for the YMCA lacrosse experience camp this summer (along with about 6 others), and today was the first day. Marisa had a meeting so I took him and stayed to watch. He did great. We bought him a lacrosse stick at a yard sale and he has been playing with our friends son (above) so he had some skills before he showed up this morning. He knew how to pass, shoot, face off..everything.

They did drills for a little bit and then broke down into a scrimmage. Jake had two goals and an assist. It was awesome. Hopefully he stays with it, really it's the only way he's going to go to an Ivy league College.

Why we did what we did...

So after talking about buying a boat each summer for the past I don't know how many summers (go back and read the summer posts for the last couple of years), we bought one this year. It's a 15 year old Starcraft that we found on Craigslist (how did the world exist before Craigslist?). The people that owned it were great. They took immaculate care of the boat, it was always garaged, always maintained etc. It was in beautiful shape. They took us out in it and showed us how to drive it, launch it, trailer it etc. They also threw in a whole bunch of ski equipment. So, all that said, Marisa and I jumped in a bought it.

Yesterday was the exact reason why we did.

We got up 1st thing and loaded everyone up in the car and headed out to Lucky Peak resevoir. Lucky Peak is about 45 minutes from the house and

a really easy drive. The lake is long and narrow (kinda like Don Pedro only not as warm and smaller), with campsites and docks kind of spread throughout. We got up there by 9:00, got the boat in the water and found an unoccupied dock. We set up camp and hung out on the water the rest of the day.

The kids swam, played in the sand, caught tadpoles and rode in the boat. All of them went in the tube behind the boat at different times. Faith and Tanner both helped drive as well. Marisa got to ski and knee board as well as tube with Faith. I tried to wakeboard (I need some help, and a board with WAY bigger bindings) and kneeboard (unsuccesfully!), and got to tube with both Tanner and Jake. Grandma Mary came up as well and helped us shepherd kids, man the ski flag and hold Faith while she fell asleep on the ride back to the dock to go home.

We left about 2:00 (it took a couple of shots for me to get the trailer in the water straight enough to trailer the

boat) and were home about four. We hit the DQ for some soft serve on the way home, and all in all it was the exact summer boat day we had been longing for. We are both so excited that the kids will have these memories to grow up with. The tube was the extent of their bravery so far, but it's just a matter of time. We'll see you on the water.

Top 10 Reasons Not to Buy a Boat...

#10).....yeah, we don't care


A 1994 Starcraft family/waterski/wakeboard/ kneeboard/day- on- the -lake-memory-maker
becomes ours on Sunday....

Jake vs. THE BOAT

While Tanner couldn't get enough of the boat, Jake had a love/hate relationship with it. He has always tended to side on the err of caution- even on the playground equipment or his bike, etc... He started out pretty nervous about the boat- in fact he didn't even go on it the first night, choosing instead to stay back at camp with Brian. On day two he faced his fear, though, and even went behind the boat on the inner tube with me. I was really proud of him for doing that because I know it was probably really hard for him to face his fear. Even on our last day he was a bit afraid of the speed and did not like when Jessa drove (she is a madwoman behind the wheel!). He did not like going over wakes or doing donuts. Brian dove in at one point to show him what would happen if he accidentallly fell in- that John would just circle back to get him. At that point he decided he also wanted to jump in and after a few minutes all of us dove in for a quick swim in the middle of Pend Oreille. Faith did NOT like me going in the water AT ALL but the boys thought it was great. Jake did drive the boat a few times with Brian (very slowly!) and claimed at the end of the trip that he really like being on the boat. I was proud of him for sticking with it and giving it a chance. It was a great primer before our big trip to Clear Lake next month.

Faith Takes on Pend Oreille

After the rather chaotic first camping trip of the season we left for this one with some trepidation. Doing without sleep for one night was one thing, but four nights could have been disastrous. The first night we showed her we meant business and took her out to the Suburban for a "time out" when she wouldn't settle down. This must have put the fear of God in her as she rose to the occasion for the rest of the trip and although she did spend at least 15 minutes each bedtime jumping on the air mattress and yelling, 'I JUMPING TANA! I JUMPING!" she settled down much easier. She couldn't quite get the hang of sleeping on the air mattress, though, and was found each night in varying degrees of what looked like extreme discomfort. One morning I woke to find her with her head on the hard ground and her legs on the mattress, the next morning I found her in the opposite pose. And, of course, one night she ended up in bed with Brian and I.
Her favorite activity was playing on the beach. One day she spent over half an hour taking sand and putting it on top of her hand, then taking a plastic container of water and rinsing it off. Over and over and over and over. She was perfectly content. She also loved playing with her cousins- and they definitely doted on her full force. She loved picking up rocks in the campground and she asked me to put them all in my pockets. Our trips to the restroom would take about three times as long as they should because she would have to stop multiple times to pick up the rocks (really just gravel from the road) and hand them to me to hold.

She was a little nervous about the boat at first, but loved it once she realized I would be holding her tightly the entire time. She kept saying how much fun it was but made it abundantly clear that she did not want to go on the inner tube behind the boat (not that I would have let her!) or into the water in any way shape or form.

Tanner Jackson (aka "Spiccoli") Does Pend Oreille

Check out our blond haired surfer boy. He LOVED the boat and has a definite need for speed. He was like a hood ornament in between Quincy and Jess on the helm. He drove the boat like a pro and was clearly made for the boating life.

He kept everyone entertained on the trip. My favorite quote of his was when Quincy said to him, "Tanner, you are so cute and nice!" and he said, "AND FUNNY!"

He liked playing on the beach and digging in the sand, playing in the "play tent" with his cousins, and helping Brian set up the equipment. He spent a lot of time angling for more marshmallows and trying to sneak swigs of diet coke from the picnic table.

He was so exhausted at the end of each day that he fell asleep upon hitting his sleeping bag.

Summer 2009 Family Camping Trip #2

We told our kids that we would leave after school on Thursday, but we really intended on leaving at 4AM. They tend not to sleep if they know something exciting is going to happen. So when we woke them up at 3:45 they were all rather surprised. Tanner, as usual, was wide awake instantaneously and looked up from his bed with wide eyes and said, "What are we doing, Dad?" like he had been awake for hours. It took Jake a few minutes of eye rubbing and sleepy confusion before he realized what we were doing. Faith was game to go, as long as she had all her "baynies" with her in the car.
They all took two naps on the 10 hour drive North. It was easy driving for Brian and easy child duty for me.

I love camping- and it is so much more fun when it isn't raining! We had beautiful weather- perfect, really. It was in the high 80's but our campground was in the shade so none of us ever got too hot. Plus we were right on the lake so it was easy to cool off. The kids got along great and the adults had fun. Brian and I got another glimpse of how much easier trips like this will be in just a few short years. I think the worst part for me was worrying about Faith around the fire. I have to admit to being a little manic about it but I had visions of charred hands covered with blisters.

No bugs. Good food (thanks Lisa and John!) and we had the boat to play on all day. I was reminded, once again, how much I love being on a ski boat. We are looking for a way to give similar summer memories of waterski trips to our kids- they need to do timeshares for boats, don't you think? Anyone want to go in with us on a used boat purchase? I skied for one run and had a blast. The extremely sore muscles I still had two days later were well worth it!

We left at around 10 on Sunday morning, intending to drive all the way home, but I hit a wall at about 4:30 and we were still 3+ hours from home. So we stopped at the Super 8 in Grangeville (small town- not even a fast food restaurant to be found!). The hotel had an indoor pool and I think this was Faith's favorite part as at one point she threw her arms around me and said,'This is the best day EVER, Mommy!" We arrived home the next day around 1PM- dirty and tired, but happy and ready to plan our next camping adventure!