Boat People

Back in November while sitting in a coffee shop before his OT appointment I asked Deuce what he thought we should get Daddy for Christmas. His answer was an immediate and unequivocal, "A boat!" I laughed becasue Mr. W IS always joking about getting a boat or about how Mr. M needs to buy a boat and take us out in it. I told him that we can't afford for me to buy Daddy a boat for Christmas. So then he asked if we could get him a canoe instead. That actually seemed more attainable and as we googled canoes I realized that I might be able to pull off the funniest Christmas gift ever, especially with Black Friday pricing. So I bought a boat. But I didn't buy any of the accessories for it like oars, life jackets, or a trolling motor because I wasn't actually sure if Mr. W would want to deal with the undertaking of being boat owners.

A comical outing ensued when I decided to save on shipping costs by going to pick up the canoe myself from the store in our pick-up truck while Mr. W was out of town on a business trip and then having to enlist a neighbor who works form home to help me offload it into the garage. And then telling Mr. W that he wasn't allowed into the garage for a month. (We have a detatched garage so this wasn't as unreasonable as one might image.) The children did an excellent job of keeping the surprise. Then on Christmas morning he finally was allowed into the garage after we opened all the other presents and he definitely was not expecting a canoe.

For months Deuce has been not so patiently waiting for Daddy to take him fishing in the canoe. Our schedule has been crazy, and he has been traveling a ton, so the annual Memorial Day camping trip was our fist opportunity to try it out. This year we were at Timothy Lake which isn't so far for the Portland contingent. It only seemed right that Deuce would be the first one to go for a canoe ride with Daddy. The look on his face was pure joy.

Later T-Bone and Little Miss got to go out with him. He was positive he was going to catch some fish and she was super excited to go out. It rained a lot this weekend so after over an hour of them being out on the lake I got a little worried. What if they had capsized? Would it be too difficult to get two children safely out of the boat on the dock? I thought it wouldn't hurt for me to walk back down there to see if I could offer assistance. Good thing I did because T-Bone was pretty miserable and started yelling, "Help me!" when he saw me on the shore. Mr. W asked me if I would take him back with me. Then he decided that he would actually like to get out of the rain too. Then Little Miss was upset because she wanted to stay in the boat and keep fishing.

The next day I got to go out on the canoe too and Little Miss came with us. She really is our Adventure Girl. She couldn't wait to be handed a fishing rod and then later wanted to paddle. She did not think we gave her enough time with the oar. After we went up and down the near shoreline Mr. W wanted to paddle across the lake and then drift back across the dam. I thought that was too ambitious given the clouds. We headed that way a bit and then the sky opened up on us and he agreed to go to the dock instead.

It was really great being out on the lake and I am looking forward to more opportunities to take it out. I think we just might get that trolling motor to help out when grouchy tweens don't want to help paddle into the wind.