Shaver Lake Vacation, Part 6: Leftovers

I've been having so much fun writing these posts about Shaver Lake!  We had such a fun vacation, and I really enjoyed reliving it through my blog!  I have so much more to post about our vacation that didn't make it into the previous posts, so I am going post my leftovers all in one place... right here!  Get ready!

Jack asked me to do this, and he wore it like this for the rest of the day.  He insisted.

When not everyone fits in the boat, but everyone wants to watch the wakeboarders/tubers/waterskiers, the jet-skis tag along!

The view from the boat

Waterskiing... none of us had been in YEARS!

Playing on the beach:

I cannot wait to go back!

Shaver Lake Vacation, Part 5: Our Cabin

As I said in a previous post, we had decided 2 years earlier, the first time we brought Jack with us to the lake, that it would be better for us if we rented a cabin instead of camping.  We really enjoyed that, and we were blessed that this year we were able to get the same cabin!  It definitely made our vacation that much more enjoyable and was a lot less work than camping would have been!

The cabin was such a nice place for us... the main cabin has a loft with two 'rooms' and there is a separate guest cabin that my parents stayed in.  The guest cabin isn't attached to the main cabin, but they share the patio, and it was enough of a space for us to be there together, but still have privacy.

On the left of this picture is the guest cabin and straight ahead (where my mom is standing) are the barn doors that lead to the patio from the main cabin.  I loved being able to have the door open to the patio and keep an eye on Jack while I was making lunches or cooking breakfast.

Every morning I'd open the barn doors onto the patio and I'd make pancakes and pack our lunches while Jack played with grandma and grandpa.  The patio was where we ate breakfast and dinner every day, and it was so nice!

Jack really enjoyed having my parents there with us, and I really appreciated having them, too!  Jack adores them, and they had a lot of fun playing with the boys.  One of Jack's favorite things was to go "walk through the scary forest!"  Grandma and grandpa loved taking the boys for walks!

I would love to stay there again every time we go!  We aren't sure, though, if the loft aspect of the cabin is a great idea, though, since we have two small kids.  We are hoping to find a place next time that has actual rooms so that Dave and I don't have to go to bed right when the boys do in fear that we will wake them up, but that also has the extra guest space for my parents to stay "with" us.  Honestly, though, each night I was so exhausted that once I got the boys in bed I had exactly enough energy to take a shower and fall into bed myself, so I don't know how necessary those rooms will be!

Vacation Again, Part 4: Day Three

Dave and I were anxious to try out our new wakeboard, so we got down to the lake a little earlier the next day and hopped on the boat!

Now, the last time that I went wakeboarding was 4 years, 2 kids, and whoknowshowmany pounds ago... I was thrilled when I was able to get up the on the first try, but I quickly realized just how much of a difference time makes!!!  Certainly wasn't as easy as it used to be, but I had a great time!

Then, it was Dave's turn!  He did great and I was so excited that he had a great time!  He had only been wakeboarding once before, and wasn't really able to get up.  He definitely was more successful this time!  

I love the look of intense concentration on his face, as well as the trying-not-to-smile smile he has once he realized that he was up and doing great!

When we were done we headed back to our cove and Jack, my mom and I jumped in to swim!  When it was time to go back to shore so that I could feed Sam, Jack didn't want to get back in the boat, and rather than make a big deal out of it, he and my mom swam the whole way back to our beach camp!  It was a long way for a 3 year old, and I was impressed that he did it!

When we got back to the beach it was time for lunch!  While Jack was eating I noticed that he was being a little silly, 'driving' his sandwich around and making noises like a car or a motorcycle... when I asked him what he was doing he said "Mom, this is not my sandwich, it's my jet-ski!"

And of course, that meant that after lunch he wanted to go for a ride on grandma's jet-ski again!

They were gone for so long!  While he and grandma were gone, Sammy had a great time playing on the shore with daddy and me!

When Jack and grandma got back from riding the jet-ski, jack came up to me and said "Mom, I have something to tell you!  We named the island [that they had been making lap after lap around]  We named it Locomotive!"  You can take the kid away from his trains, but you can't take the trains away from the kid!  Or, is it the other way around...?

Part 3 Of A Lot Of Shaver Lake Posts: Cruising

After we went tubing we were so hungry, so we came back to shore to eat lunch and rest.  Sam was thrilled to have his tummy full and to be free of the life jacket for a while, and Jack Jack hadn't realized how hungry he was until I put the sandwich in his hand!

And then, we went cruising again!  We had so much fun exploring the lake.  It was something that we had some a million times before, but this time was extra special because we had Jack Jack and Sammy with us.  And, you know, we were in our own boat!

And, of course, when we were done and back on shore, Sammy was thrilled!

Shaver Lake Vacation, Part 2: Tubing

We were so excited to get back down to the lake on the second day!  So excited, in fact, that as soon as we got down to the beach we blew up the inner tube, grabbed my cousins Danielle and Emmaleigh, and took the boat out right away!  Jack didn't need any persuading to get into the tube... he would have hopped right in if we had let him!  I wanted to show him exactly what he would be doing when he was being pulled, so we had Emmaleigh go first.  When she was done, he said "Yes, mom!  I really want to do that and go really fast!"  So, I climbed in the tube and Danielle and my dad helped Jack get in with me...

I was so glad that I went on the tube with Jack Jack because being able to hear him and sense how he felt about it really helped me be brave for him... I was really nervous to let my little man be pulled in the tube, but apparently he wasn't nervous at all!  He kept yelling to go faster, and was laughing so hard!  Each time we got splashed he'd squeal and yell "I just got all wet!!!!" and keep laughing!  He was so brave, and I was so proud of him!  I was not a brave kid at all, so I was definitely puffed up with pride that he was!  I guess that's just further evidence that he is his daddy's son!  After a very short while (I just can't hang on as long as I used to!), I got out of the tube and let my mom get in with Jack.  They had a very fun (and long!) ride, and I was cracking up watching Jack crack up as he was being towed!

Check out the look on his face!  And he even got a little bit of air!  (No, he's not on the tube all by himself in that last picture, but it does look like it!)

After Jack and grandma were done, we made Jack get out of the tube so that Dave could go in!  Dave had never been tubing before, and Jack and I had a lot of fun watching daddy back there!  He got a great ride, too!

After Mr. Toad's Dave's Wild Ride was over it was about time for lunch and Sam needed to eat.  Before we headed in, though, we put Jack and my dad in the tube so that we didn't waste any time or gas!  Jack had so much fun going fast, but I think he may have had even more fun going slowly!

And speaking of little mister Sammy Wammy... he did great while we were all playing around!  Danielle held him most of the time, and he just chilled and/or slept.  I was so proud of him and I was so relieved that he was going with the flow so well!  And Danielle did a great job with him, too!  She's expecting a little girl in December and I know she's going to be a great mom!

Even though Sam did great on the boat, he sure was relieved when it was time to go to shore!

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!