Vacation Time! Part 1: The First Day

I was SO SO SO excited for Shaver Lake this year for a few reasons...

1. I love Shaver Lake. Really. Love it.
2. Jack had so much fun last time we went, and this time he was 2 years older and could enjoy it even more
3. We didn't get to go last year.
4. It would be Sam's first trip to Shaver.
5. We really really really needed a vacation. Dave especially.
6. We have a boat now!

We used to camp there, and while I love camping, it's just too much work when you have small children. So, we camp in a cabin now! Much less work, just as much fun, waaaaay more comfortable!We were a little nervous about the drive up to Shaver Lake since we weren't sure how Sam would handle being in his carseat for that long. We knew Jack would be fine, though, and as it turned out, Sam was, too! As long as he was either sleeping or his hand was being held! Luckily, Jack is an amazing big brother, and he was only too happy to hold Sam's hand for the 6+ hour drive!

Sam's night sleeping patterns were pretty consistent at that point (the very last time that was ever the case... unless you count Will Wake Often For No Good Reason to be consistent)... he'd wake anywhere from 1-2:30 to eat and then he'd sleep between 5-5:30, wake again to eat again, and then go back to sleep until 6:15. Not wanting to mess too much with his schedule, and wanting to get as much sleep myself as possible, Dave and I planned to get the boat loaded when Sam went back to sleep and leave as soon as he woke up again. That plan worked perfectly, and we had a pretty nice trip up to the Lake! We stopped twice: once to gas up the truck/eat breakfast, and once to gas up the boat (squee!!!)/eat lunch/discuss why Dave should listen to me about which way to go rather than to the GPS who was obviously smoking crack (just so you know, I won and I was totally right- take that Garmin!). When we got up to the town of Shaver, we picked up the key to the cabin and drove straight to the boat ramp to launch our boat for the very first time!!!

At the boat ramp, the plan was that Dave and my dad (who used to own a boat and whom we were counting on to teach us how to do boat stuff) would drive the boat to the cove and my mom and I would take the truck/trailer back to park it and meet them in our usual spot on the beach in the cove. We let Jack choose if he wanted to stay with mommy or go on the boat with daddy, and of course, he chose the boat!

I was busy during The Launching of The Boat so I wasn't able to get any photos of it, but I did get some other important photos! Most notably, I got a photo of my awesome parking job!!! I was a little nervous about parking the trailer after we dropped Dave and the boat off, but I didn't need to worry- I rocked that!

That's our trailer in the middle. My goal was to get it as close to the red trailer as possible without hitting it, or crowding it too much. Later when I showed Dave where I parked the trailer, he said that I did an "excellent job!" Did you hear that?! Excellent!!!

So excellent, in fact, that we made it to the beach before Dave and the boat! I was happy about that, because I wanted to get some pictures of Dave's first ride on his boat!

Almost the same exact moment that Jack hopped off of the boat, he got to go right back out again, on grandma's jet-ski!  He adored riding grandma's jet-ski, and he spent so much time on it throughout the week!  He and grandma spent so much time circling one of the islands, over and over and over and over and... you get the idea.  Here are some pics of Jack on grandma's jet-ski throughout the week.  By the second day he was a pro, he knew just how to splash the water to cool off the seat, and he was very enthusiastic about it!

 

We intentionally planned to go get pizza for dinner that first night so that we wouldn't feel too rushed on our first day there. As a result, when everyone else had to pack up to go make dinner we still had time to go play on the boat! I was thrilled, as I was dying to go for a ride! Sam was pretty excited, too!

That is, he was pretty excited until I told him that he had to wear a life jacket!

The 6 of us (Dave, Me, Jack, Sam, and my mom and dad) had such a fun first-time-on-our-new-boat cruise! Dave was a great driver, too, especially for never having driven a boat before. He likes to go incredibly fast, though, and I did have to close my eyes and go to my happy place a few times. I trust him, though. Really, I do!

I've never really enjoyed driving boats. I am not sure why, but it's really uncomfortable for me. I suppose I feel like I don't have enough control or something. I don't know why that makes sense to me, since I have the exact same amount of control over the boat as others do when they are driving it! Or maybe it's that there are no lanes on a lake and I've seen a lot of really dumb people pull some really dumb moves and I really don't want to do anything wrong or cause an accident or something like that. Or maybe it's that my Aunt Joanne used to scare the poo out of me when she'd drive her boat (she made incredibly sharp turns and I was always so certain that there was no way that could be safe!). I'm definitely working on getting over my dislike-of-driving-boats, though!

Something I was inexplicably excited about was getting to teach Jack about jumping off the boat in the middle of the lake. I always had so much fun doing that as a kid, and I couldn't wait for Jack to see how much fun it is! He was a little nervous at first, but after I helped him "jump" in he loved it! He was so excited and was giggling and he kept telling me "This water is really deep, mom!" Totally worth buying a boat, just for that!

We were by no means done playing, but we had to head back so that we could get dinner and get the boys to bed on time (or, an hour late).

Jack had so much fun, all he could talk about all evening was the fun stuff he had gotten to do that day! He was a little wary about sleeping in a new place, though, and told me that he didn't want to sleep in the "spooky cabin" and that we had to go home so that he could sleep in his bed. I explained to him that if we went home then he couldn't do all of the fun stuff again the next day, but if he slept in the cabin then he could have just as much fun as he had that day... he liked that idea, and after that he slept great! I was so proud of him! He didn't even wake up when Sam cried!