Lake Whitney

So, as I mentioned in the previous post, we spent a few days down at Lake Whitney.  We got to the "cabin" late in the afternoon on Tuesday, unloaded the car and headed down to the marina to dock the boat.  Side note: We had to drive over the huge Whitney Dam to get to the place we were staying and it was just a little two lane road.  They were doing construction on it so one side had a concrete barrier and the other was just the guard rail.  It was very high, very close quarters (we're talking inches, people!) between the concrete barrier on one side and oncoming traffic on the other, and pulling the boat to top it all off - I almost had a panic attack!  I'm beyond grateful that I wasn't driving and that Josh doesn't freak out in situations like that.  I dreaded driving over that bridge every single time! Back to the story now:  So that first night we didn't go out on the lake.  The kids were cranky, mom's nerves were shot (thank you, Whitney Dam!), everyone was hungry, and we still needed to find a grocery store.  Daddy tried to talk me into it but I convinced him that no good would come from going on the lake that night.  :)   After a very long night of trying to get Sawyer to sleep in the Pack 'n Play (NOT successfully) the kids woke at the break of dawn and were ready to party.  Awesome.  We ended up being out on the Lake at about 8:30 AM!  It was a little chilly to swim so we just explored the lake for a while.  Everyone got a chance to drive the boat.  Ryley was the best driver out of the kids.  He worked the throttle like he'd been doing it for years.  He's better than I am!  I was really impressed. 

After exploring for quite a while we finally decided to try out the water.  It's a really deep lake so it was nice and cold.  It was a little shocking at first being used to the bath temperature Lake Lavon but it felt awesome the rest of the day when it really warmed up.
The lake is so big and open that a lot of it was just too choppy to do anything on - the kids didn't even like tubing on it, but we found a couple of nice spots so we mostly stuck around there.  They love tubing so that's mostly what we do.  Josh and I did go skiing a couple of times and we each rode on the tube for the first time with the kids.  Sawyer even went with me on the tube once.  I really don't like tubing and never have.  Josh convinced me to go with Maddie though.  I was screaming and yelping most of the time and it was funny to hear things like, "Mom, calm down." and "Mom, this is like a CASH ride - it's gonna be OK!"   Hahaha.
This little guy loves to hang out in the tube and splash in the water.  He doesn't care for the pool very much but he loves the lake!

Maddie is such a big help on the boat.  Big surprise, right?!  We are certainly blessed to have her!  Sawyer is also really great on the boat.  He just loves to be outside doing anything.  
We had lunch on the lake each day.  We anchored by a big cliff and watched some crazy people jump while we ate lunch.  When it was time to go we could not get the anchor up.  It was stuck on something about 90 feet down.  Josh tried and tried to pull it up but it was not budging.  He was about ready to cut the line when we decided to say a prayer.  We really didn't want to lose the anchor!  We tried a few more times to lift up the anchor and after we got the boat turned around pulled in reverse for a bit the anchor came lose.  We all cheered and Maddie immediately said, "Let's say another prayer to thank Heavenly Father now."  Yep, she's a good one, that Maddie.  We ended up having lunch at the same spot the next day and guess what happened? Yep.  The anchor got stuck again.  The bottom of that lake must be full of trees or big rocks or something that eats anchors!  We had learned how to get it out the previous day so it only took us a few tries to get unstuck. 
This little guy even napped a couple of times.  Not for very long though.
After the first day of boating one of the engines died while we were headed back to the dock.  This was our first experience (on this boat anyway) with an engine dying so we didn't really have any idea where to start looking for a problem.  We managed to get back to the marina and dock the boat with our other engine (yay for dual engine boats!)  We checked a few things and still couldn't get it to start.  As a last resort Josh took off the gas cap and replaced it and it started right up.  We figured it was just a build up of pressure in the gas tank or maybe some bad gas that we had gotten at the marina earlier in the day. 

We headed home for showers and then out to get some dinner.  But first I had us take a family picture at our lovely "cabin".  I look totally awkward in this picture.  I guess setting the camera up, pushing the button and trying to squeeze in place before the timer goes off causes you to look like a weirdo in your picture.  Or maybe that's how I naturally look, not sure really.  I don't know what the explanation for Cash is though. . .     
We ended up driving into Waco on this night because I could not eat at McDonald's again and that was our only option in the bustling metropolis of Whitney, Texas.  That or the gas station with the Chinese restaurant inside.  Surprisingly no one wanted diarrhea though.  I'll drive 45 minutes to eat some real food, thank you.

The next day the kids woke up just as bright and early but I told Josh we were not leaving for the lake until at least 10 AM.  It was another fun day of lots of tubing and playing in the lake.  Maddie and Ryley really got into jumping in the water from the boat on this day though and kept begging us to stop and let them swim.  This doesn't sound like a big deal but Ryley has been very anti jumping in so we were glad there was some improvement there.  Cash still doesn't even want to get his head wet.

We started to head back to the marina around 4 PM and wouldn't you know it, that same engine died again!  We were totally baffled but very thankful that it chose to die at the end of the day again.  We must have started and stopped it a hundred times throughout each day but we only had problems with it when we were headed back to the marina.  We didn't get it started again until late that night when I convinced Josh to stop by after dinner just to try it.  I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep worrying about getting the boat on the trailer with only one engine.  We researched it a bunch online that night and it sounded like the spark plugs just needed to be replaced.  It wasn't something we could do right then and there though so we decided to cut the trip short and just head home on Friday morning.  Josh had wanted to go ski the Brazos River on our way home but I didn't think that was a good idea.  After we got home, Josh got the spark plugs all changed and didn't even have any parts left over!  We haven't taken it back out yet but Josh is confident that was the problem.  I guess we'll see. . .