The fun...er...Craziness, continues

Hello again, all. No Jon, I haven't forgotten about you. We're back from our weekend away, not really refreshed or renewed, but hey, we got away from home, so that's good. Memory refresher: we took a trip up to the Shuswap for a weekend of houseboating fun and excitement (Mara Lake, actually, just south of Shuswap Lake). The trip was good in and of itself, it's just a little bit of a gong-show when you take an infant on vacation. Usually Theo's a pretty noisy sleeper, sometimes waking up in the middle of the night just to whine and then go back to sleep. But when you're on a boat with a bunch of people who maybe don't appreciate being woken up at 3:30 in the morning (which seems totally unreasonable to me), it's tough. Plus there was the fact that there was no room for his playpen in our cabin, so he had to sleep in our bed again. Yikes. Now I remember why we stopped doing that. Let's just say that not much sleep was had over the course of the three nights, and it took several days to recover from our vacation when we got home. This was added to the fact that I managed to wound myself the day before we left in a skydiving accident. Okay, no, it wasn't that glamorous (but I had you going, didn't I? No wait, you know me too well to think that I'd actually jump out of a perfectly good airplane)--just a kitchen knife accident. Note to self: when you're opening a new set of knives that say "WARNING: SHARP" it probably is, and it's best to keep your fingers out of the way. I ended up with stitches in my middle and ring fingers of my left hand, but at least I didn't do any permanent damage that would preclude me from playing guitar. Even the doctor commented on what a good, sharp set of knives we had.

If this all sounds like a bunch of belly-aching to you all, my apologies. It really was a fun trip. Saw some amazing sights, including an up-close-and-personal encounter with a huge bald eagle (no, he didn't try to carry Theo away as dinner, which was good), and a really interesting nature channel-style look at a mother duck and her chicks, swimming through the water with the babies on her back. They'd fall off at various times and scramble to get back on. Cute, but you sort of had to be there. Theo had a weekend of firsts as well, including his first trip outside the Lower Mainland, his first ride on a speedboat, and his first night away from home with mommy and daddy (no, I don't count the nursery in that category). And yes, I do have a couple of pictures to show you...

Here's our accommodations for the week, seen from the beach that we, well, beached at. The boat may look small in this shot, but it slept 11 of us quite comfortably and had a full kitchen, fireplace, and living room-type area:

And the aforementioned bald eagle. Not as impressive in photos, but really cool in real life:

Yes, we did get some great shots of Theo as well. Here are some of my favourites...

First off, this one reminds me of Sunday School pageants when I was a kid. You know how all the shepherds dress up in bathrobes and stuff? Here's Theo's version:

He also particularly liked rides in the ski boat, although the look on his face in this one may indicate otherwise:

And of course, what's a vacation without a good nap now and then (especially if you're not sleeping through the night)?

The place we beached the houseboat had some train tracks running alongside it (no trains the whole time, though. For those of you who are familiar with my childhood, I was a train fanatic, and still am, and I was hoping to school Theo in the art of flattening pennies, but alas, no luck). Train tracks are particularly good places for photos; even I look decent in this one:

You know, for not getting much sleep, Theo sure was at his photogenic best. Here are my three favourite shots from the weekend.

Whoever came up with putting little fabric ears on sleepers is a genius:

And a couple in the Snugli:

And finally, no trip back from the interior would be complete without a stop at the travel plaza at Whatcom Road in Abbotsford, am I right? We went to the Tim Horton's there, and I figured that since I'd given Starbucks a shout out in one of these postings I might as well give Timmy's a chance. I think he likes the Tim's better for some reason:

That's all for now, folks. I promise I'll make up for lost time and give you another post sometime soon--I've got stories to tell! And hey, keep up the comments, would you? It still makes me happy to know that you're out there reading this blog. See you all soon.