What a FABULOUS Weekend!!

Carly's fabulous weekend began on Friday morning with a long morning playdate at our swimming pool. One of the boys from her swimming lessons came over, and they enjoyed splashing and "jumping" into our neighborhood kiddie pool and playing with various toys in both pools. Around noon Carly did inform us all it was time to go by trying to climb back in her wagon.

Unfortunately, Friday afternoon did not go quite so fabulously. Dave was occupied with work for about an hour longer than he expected. Which was not a big deal, it just meant our drive to the north end of Lake Norman to pick up our boat needed to be a little hastier than we had originally planned. Traffic cooperated and we made EXCELLENT time. About 15 minutes before arriving at the service center Dave called to state we were a few minutes out and asked them to go ahead and place our boat in the water. Unfortunately during this call he learned that their boat lift had broken during our drive and was not functioning at the moment. Because we were so close, we continued on in hopes that it was only a minor repair and would be functioning for the last few moments of their business day. Luck was not on our side and Dave was forced to ride home in our car instead of our boat.

During the overnight hours Dave's cousin Jon arrived for a visit. Carly allowed her dad and cousin to sleep in (while mommy was off running). However, at 9am Carly was up and ready and Dave was on the phone checking on the boat lift that had been broken the previous evening. All things appeared to be a go, so we all four had a delicious breakfast of bacon and blueberry pancakes before piling in the car to head north again. Again, when we were about 15 minutes out Dave called and learned that the lift was broken. So around we turned.

The remainder of our morning involved playing, the boys taking a trip to the store for boating necessities (in hopes we would get the boat back), and a short game of Scrabble during Carly's nap. Our game was interupted by a phone call from the Marina that the lift was up and working and based on the line up we should be in the water in 30 minutes. So off Dave and Jon went. While Carly napped I packed us up for an afternoon of boating fun.

Our friends Jason and Kelly were also able to join in our boating fun, so by 3:30 all six of us were in our bathing suits, covered in sunscreen, and beginning our cruise on the lake. We motored over to a common anchoring spot, anchored, and jumped in. We all spent quite a while floating in the water, getting out only to refresh our beverage or for a snack. Carly especially enjoyed the float I found her last weekend and the tube we have for tubing.

As it neared dinner time, Dave suggested that we pull up anchor and tube our way back. Jon went first and showed off just how strong he was by being un-throwable off of the tube. Carly and I got to tube next. It was a very slow trek through the water and Carly was unsure at moments; however, she lasted quite a while. Unfortunately, I don't think the others in the boat were enjoying the slow ride through the hot afternoon sun. Our fun continued once we were home with a cookout dinner and then s'mores with our neighbors.

This morning was not quite as relaxed. Jon left for Virginia very early in the morning (so no sleeping in for him). I got up early for an open water swim clinic (so no sleeping in for me). Carly woke up before 8:30 (so no sleeping in for David). Once I was home from my open water swim, Dave, Carly, Jason, Kelly, and I walked up to the Bagel store for a yummy bagel brunch.

After Carly's nap, she, Dave, and I headed back down to the boat for a lovely afternoon. We anchored and swam, and then went for a very lovely cruise.

Carly and I sat on the back bench and she rotated between laying back with her feet up to dancing to looking at everything we were passing by to resting on me. We decided to call it a day so that we could head north to pick up Dave's truck from the Marina, and thankfully we made this call when we did. Once we had the boat unloaded we were notified by one of the neighborhood kids that they had begun to hear thunder. Dave went back to cover the boat (typically we do this later in the evening after things have time to dry out a little) and Carly and I continued to take the load we were carrying to the car. Thankfully Dave got the boat covered, we were all able to put on dry clothes, and get back in the car before the rain started. Our fabulous weekend was wrapped up with a yummy quesadilla dinner with left over chicken.