Monday, September 01, 2008

It was an adventure, to say the least...

Friday afternoon, our friends Bryan and Anna called to ask if we would be interested in camping with them out on Lake Mead. They had gone out the night before and found a nice little spot. We had a little lapse of reason and agreed to join them. We both rushed home from work early to start packing up and getting our boat ready. By the time we met them (along with John and Denita) out at Calville Bay and all launched our boats, the sun was setting as we set across the lake. We were wishing it was a bit lighter out since the water was perfectly still and would have made for some beautiful wakeboarding. We hoped it would be just as calm the next morning.
We followed along behind them as they led the way through the darkness to our campsite. It was nearly a 45-minute boat ride. Dane helped Daddy navigate.
It was Nora's first boating experience, but she didn't think it was all that exciting.
We got out to the area where Bryan and Anna had camped the night before, but they couldn't find the spot. Luckily, they came upon a nice little sandy beach just as good or better than their previous site. It seems we were pretty lucky to find it, since we realized it was surrounded by many rocky points when the sun came out Saturday morning. Thus far into our experience, things were going fairly smoothly. We unloaded our boats, and Anna proceeded to put together some hamburgers since none of us had eaten yet. Halfway through our meal, Dane started to get tired (it was nearing his usual bedtime) and started sobbing to go home. It wasn't really an option for us since it would have taken over two hours for us to pack up, try to blindly navigate back to Calville Bay, load up the boat, and drive back into town. So Mike decided it was time to set up the tent so that we could settle Dane in for the night. That's when he discovered that we had no tent poles with. By now, Nora was a bit out of sorts, Dane was outright melting down, and Mike and I were becoming rather frazzled. However, Mike and Bryan managed to pull together some light poles, a boat oar, and a water ski and set up our tent after a fashion. I continued to try to calm Dane, who finally settled in with me on the boat (he must have felt there was some hope that we would go home as long as were on the boat), and Anna rocked Nora back to sleep. We finally all settled in for the night with Dane stirring every so often and sobbing "I want to go home!" We thought things were good until Dane decided that this camping thing was pretty fun and woke up to jump on our air mattress for over an hour! We were glad that he was not longer sobbing, but we were getting rather desperate for some sleep. We finally settled in again sometime in the early morning. It was kind of fun to lay there under the stars, hoping the wind wouldn't get any stronger, and watching the lightning far off to the south, crossing our fingers it would stay there. Dane awoke early the next morning, eager to go for a swim!
The view from our tent.
Nora slept in her pack and play most of the night, but she snuggled in with us early in the morning. Overall, she did much better than Dane- this time!
See, it really did end up looking like a tent after all.
Dane decided not to actually go swimming, but he watched Daddy from the boat.
Then they meandered around the beach for a while.
Bryan and Anna put together a good breakfast over the fire.
We went out for a little while to do some wakeboarding after breakfast. However, Dane's lack of sleep was catching up with him, and he started becoming rather unbearable. The water was a little too rough to be much fun, so we packed up and headed back to Calville Bay. The wind continued to pick up on the boat ride back in, making for some rough waves and one very upset little boy. We finally got him to calm down enough to "drive" the boat in the calmer water right before we loaded up to go home.
We were all unloaded at home with the kids napping by noon. We had a lazy afternoon and all were in bed by 8 pm to try to make up for our lack of sleep Friday evening. All in all, we had a very memorable time!!

4 comments:

Dave and Jodie said...

Wow!

Mel B Marvis said...

Yep, definitely an adventure.

Anonymous said...

I check out your wonderful little family from time to time! I'm so happy for both of you, two beauties and such a great love between you and Mike. Someday I'll meet the two newest additions! Okay, some time back you posted a recipe for Avacado Boba. I had no idea what that was but being the obsessive compulsive and food-lover that I am, I set out on a quest to find out what got you so excited. I finally had my first Avacado Smoothie tonight. NOW, I need the recipe. I found Volcano Teas on Spring Mtn. I was worried I wouldn't like it, but now I'm so hooked. Let me know if you still have the recipe. My email is gioiaacres@earthlink.net. Thanks, and take care!!!!!

merc n heidi said...

ha ha , glad I'm not the only one who finds myself without tent poles..I guess even though I was under the stars with 6 kids maybe it was easier than your experience, except I had to do it for 2 days!