Boating on Table Rock Lake

My parents neighborhood is pretty much surrounded by Table Rock Lake.  They live on a little peninsula on the lake and their neighborhood has 2 private boat docks.  They take their Gator down to the boat dock, as does everyone else in their neighborhood apparently since there are usually a bunch of ATV’s parked down by the docks.  At first Ben was TERRIFIED of the Gator.  They started it for the first time, and he screamed bloody murder.  But by the end of our time he would run over to the Gator and get up on it himself and was always excited to take another ride.  Same thing went for the boat.  Granted, the boat is pretty loud, but he flipped out when my dad was raising the engine compartment lid and then REALLY flipped out when he started the boat.  The first boat ride with him wasn’t pretty, but the second one he fell asleep pretty much the entire ride.  I think the wind in his face, the vibration of the boat and the rocking on the water (and the lack of a nap) helped quite a bit.  Abbie, on the other hand, LOVES the boat, loves the noise, loves going fast.  The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, that’s for sure.

This ended up being a rather short ride. 

Once it started lightening the distance we turned around and headed home.

Abbie and my mom have a pretty special connection, and I think Abbie gets a lot of her spunk and talkativeness from my mom.  Mark and I definitely see a lot of similarities in their personalities.  Abbie loves it when my mom tells her stories when she’s on the potty.  (I remember liking it too when I was little.)  Abbie is just captivated by what my mom is telling her in this photo, and I love it.  I’m sure Abbie will love this picture being on the blog too when she’s in high school.  =)

A chip off the old block

We took our last boat ride of the season yesterday.  The fall colors along the bluffs of the Mississippi are so pretty.  I’m really hoping I get to experience the fall colors in Italy too when I get back (in 4 days!).

When I was little, I LOVED going fast, in anything.  The car, the boat, anything really.  Once I was in the car with my mom when I was around 3 years old, and it was icy.  The car ended up doing a doughnut in the middle of the road, obviously scaring the crap out of my mom.  She said when the car stopped spinning, the first thing I said was “Do it again mom!”.  Haha!  I’m not sure what Mark was like when he was little, but obviously he’s somewhat of an adrenaline junkie now since he flies fighter jets.  I would assume that you’d have to somewhat like speed and excitement to fly those.

So Abbie comes by her adventurous side pretty naturally.  As soon as we step foot in the boat she pipes up with “Go fast Gampa!  I want to go FAST!”  She does it every single time we get into the boat and she pretty much lights up like a Christmas tree as soon as she feels it speeding up.  Yesterday she was shrieking with laughter when we were going fast and her smile couldn’t have gotten any bigger.  The faster we went, the louder she laughed.

Boating on the Mississippi is one of my favorite past times and I’m glad that my daughter seems to enjoy it as much as I did, and still do.  Although I will say that going 70+ mph in the boat is a tad different (a little more nerve-wracking) when you’re not the kid anymore, and you have your own kid to worry about. 

Thanks for taking us for a boat ride, Dad.  Boating with you is still as fun as it ever was.

Boater girl

I grew up around boats and boating on the Mississippi River.  My dad has always had a boat and many of my childhood memories revolve around time spent on the river.
So naturally we wanted to get Abbie out on my dad’s boat while we’re home for the summer.  Abbie’s very first boat ride took place when she was about 6 weeks old.  Obviously now she’s quite a bit more interactive so it’s lots of fun to take her out on the boat because she LOVES it.  She asks to “go on grandpa’s boat” quite frequently.

Abbie and her cousins watching the boat go down the ramp.

Abbie loves to watch the “water splashing” behind the boat.

I love this little thing!!

She also likes to help grandpa drive the boat.  My dad said the first time she was in his lap on the boat, the first thing she reached for was the throttle.  And the next thing was the steering wheel.  And she didn’t want grandpa helping her drive because she could do it herself, so she kept pushing his hand away from the steering wheel.

The last time we were on the boat, she was begging my dad to go faster.  He thought I set her up to say that, but I had absolutely nothing to do with it.  The kid likes speed and I was exactly the same way when I was her age.  So Grandpa got the boat up to 72mph for her that time and she was shrieking with laughter.  It was fun to watch her, although going that fast in a boat makes me a tad bit nervous now that I’m a parent and have a little one aboard.