Boating at Smith Mountain Lake

I took Sam and Jo to my parents' house at Smith Mountain Lake this past weekend. This was the first time Sam had been on the boat, and the first time that Josephine realized how cool it can be to sit on the bow of a ship as it speeds across the open sea.

Okay, lake in the case, but humor me.

Of course, Josephine insisted on wearing the special Barbie life jacket we had to get for her last year, when she refused to wear the ones that were not fashionable. The same thing happened again this year. I struggled to get her into the plain yellow life jacket, but she refused with a capital N. Thankfully, her grandmother remembered last year's purchase which cheered Josephine up instantly.

Sam is much more resigned when I want him to do things he does not want to do. He was not entirely happy on the boat, but he seemed to know it was what the rest of us wanted to do. Here you can see him in his life jacket, and it wasn't entirely a good fit. He wanted me or his grandmother to hold him the entire time we were on board. My mother helped things out immeasurably by giving him the toy truck that luckily was in the boat's glove compartment.

Josephine also loved sleeping in the top bunk of the bunk bed, and was so pleased. There is also the phenomenon of my kids getting to explore all of the toys that have accumulated as my parent's six other grandchildren have gone through the growing up process. So many books and old toys to sift through. We leave all of that behind when we leave the lake, confident that Sam's "new" monster truck and Josephine's favorite Barbie book will be there when we go back later this summer.

I wish I had a picture from the end of this trip, when Josephine and I were sitting on the bow singing songs to the mermaids. Her eyes were so bright and her smile could have powered a small village. Instead, I'll conclude this post from when we were just leaving the dock and the kids were a little more skeptical.




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