Monkies Current Eventz: Summer Days are Here for Play

We are about to leave on family vacation. With a ton of things to do before we go Ryan decides to help the neighborhood boys build a long board out of plywood.

Summer 2012 has created a Convoy. The trip out went great.

Here's a view of my favorite part of the drive.

And then we arrive at our final destination. Otherwise known as Heaven.

We find our own private beach.

We build campfires and roast lunch. (This year I win the award for a major increase in my consumption of hot dogs. I have moved from None to perhaps 3 per week! Yikes!)

We would take naps.

And create community gatherings.

We would float

And paddle

And float some more.

We'd find a reason to smile.

We'd even increase our pace.

The water was glorious.

And then, of course, we'd be good for a laugh.

Sometimes at other's expense. You see, you don't leave a silly family in charge of your baby.

While Dad is in the boat

And Mom is wakeboarding.

And yes, I am the wife of a boat owner. Before this venture we knew the acronym for boat is:
(B)ring (O)n (A)nother (T)housand.
That a boat is a whole in the water in which you sink your money into.
But still, we got a boat.
And don't you worry. It did not disappoint. In every regard. In Cost, In Concern and in Fun.
As a matter of fact, this boat was even waxed to look it's best. I stated that it was probably best to not put effort into waxing for it would surely sink.
And I was on the right track ... because the boat ... err, well...it did not float.
Haha, actually, it just took on more water than is reasonable. But that's what a bilge is for...right?

Quinten says, "Mom, look at me. I definitely won't sink." He's not incorrect.

And then there's the man with the keys. Do not mess with the man with the keys. This guy was pretty insistant in both driving and keys.

He may look sweet ... but it's all part of his ploy to ensure he's the one in charge!

I thought this was a perfect representation of the signature of summer.

And then, every so often, a storm would roll up the lake.

If you want to see 'dumb people.' Be sure to stick around for minutes before the storm hits. You have ladies setting up umbrellas (that nearly act as a dagger pointed in your specific direction), you have people cramming floaty toys into golf carts and ....

Then there are the boaters. I did not stick around to see how this guy moored his boat. He sure was getting tossed around out there.

Have you ever heard the phrase: Wall of Rain.

This would be it. Headed in our direction.

I wasn't in a hurry to get out of here. I love people watching. But I soon realized I should have attempted to leave sooner as we were getting sand blasted. It was at this time Quinten yells out, "Grampa better not be lazy and NOT come to get us." Seconds later. Grampa appeared. He drove down onto the beach to pick us up. And here's the debris I was able to capture on the road.

It was a little scary watching the trees sway to and fro. I have a wee bit of a magnetic personality to fallen trees SO I didn't feel super safe. But the storm soon passed and left behind some evidence of it's strength.

What should you do when your camp is in the rain and your boat is in the shop?

Well, you go in search of sun of course. And off we went for a day in Kelowna. It was super fun. I captured it all on camera - and then I accidentally deleted the pictures. So you'll just have to take my word for it. The picture I so truly wanted to share, and hope I never forget is representing just how tired Chase was as we ran a busy sunshine schedule. There was a mound of sand about the size of 10 watermelons on the beach. Chase walked up to this mound and cuddled right up to it. Cheek down in the sand and all. It was so cute! Now I will just have to trust my memory to store it. And the readers will just have to imagine it. Here is the sand on his face - from it.

Of course, the super fair Mom that I am, captured a picture of each child on the zip line. Of course, most everyone's pictures were, again, deleted. So, here are the ones I was able to salvage.

Logan

Quinten

Sadie

Sadie looking over for the smile of approval

Here is a happy swinging little man.

Then we were off to the water spray park. It was a rockin' good time.

Chase was super fun to watch. And he made tons of friends along the way. We changed him out of his wet cloths because the breeze was rather chilly. He just marched right back into the spray park with his clothes on. And he had a minor run in with Ogopogo.

I'm sure many would give the advice to not turn your back. Chase was brave enough to do it anyway.

Here is how Quinten feels about the water spray park:

We all need to just dance our feelings out.

Speaking of Brave: We're back to highlighting Miss Adrenhaline Junkie. We were traveling at full speed when she was stretched into position. And she smiled the whole way through.

Back at camp we can find lots of good fun too. Here's my little/big beach baby.

The boys built a fort up in the trees.

Here is their view from the fort. Now that's prime real estate.

Chase helped make dinner. In his own way.

We found a snake. Not cool.

Derrick caught a fish on a stick. Not my favorite thing either.

We went to the market to buy carrots, potatos and balloon yo-yos.
What an interesting business idea by a local teenage girl.

Logan fell over the edge of a cliff. I'm not sure why he is so momentarily happy about it. Some things about a 10.75 year old boy can never be explained.

The road outside my parent's place has the odd car travel through. And when they do, they travel at a very high rate of speed. It always made me nervous when Mr. Independance would start to wonder. On this particular day I decided to secretly follow him to see if he would ever look back.

He got to the road, and turned around on his own. I'm sure that was just a fluke.

One of our first mornings at camp. Boat is still waiting to be dropped in the water.

Quinten takes the time to entertain Chase so he doesn't fall over the rock wall Grampa has newly installed.

She wanted to be packed around. However, she suffered an unnecessary collapse. She took the tumble with stride.

This picture has earned the award as my favorite so far this summer.

Little Swimmers ... or shall we say floaters?

Someone really needs to teach this Dad how to put food in his baby's mouth. Rather than smeared all over.

She loves paddling and learning the concept of steering. She does throw the odd tantrum when the boat does not respond in the way she expects. That's interesting to watch. It's sort of like her own padded space.