Soccer, Stinkeye, and Solo-Canoeing

Ben has started summer soccer, and is having fun so far...


It's amazing how much difference there is in the quality of play between the 7/8 team, and the 5/6 team...Ben is now playing in the 7/8 team (even though he's still 6), and they play and have positions and everything...last year on 5/6, they had fun, but mostly played blob-tag around the ball...


The dogs have been cute the whole time, playing and sleeping hard every day, rain or shine...


Ben wasn't grumpy here, just practicing his stinkeye...you never know when you'll need to freeze someone's blood in their veins...


Gail has been balancing sun and fun with soul-deadening work in her virtual office on the top of the boathouse...not everyone can be a public school teacher...


Yesterday, Ben and I went for his first real canoe-paddle...he paddled a 9-foot Hornbeck boat with a double-bladed paddle...he did a great job for his first time out (he's noodled around in the shadows before, but this was our first time covering real ground)...


He started out with a loop around the raft, and after watching him, I was confident that he could handle himself on the big water of Upper Saranac Lake...so he headed back, we packed a picnic, and headed over to Green Island for lunch and a swim...


He has been mentally ready for a while to try this out, but his muscles and coordination have been lacking until now, it's exciting that we can now enjoy this stuff together...


I paddled my bigger solo boat, an Old Town Penobscot 15 (if anyone cares), which is a better rescue boat in case he had tipped over on our trip...he didn't, but I like to hope for the best and plan for the worst...


We headed out, with me working hard to limit my instruction, and concentrating on making sure that the two of us just had fun, which turned out not to be so hard...we both had a really fun time talking and paddling, and enjoying each other's company...solo canoes are so fun, Ben figured it out quickly, both the paddling, and the joy of being the captain of your own ship...



We did some good synchronized paddling...


I followed him for a bit, both to keep an eye and make sure he didn't drown or get eaten by giant lake-sharks, and also (maybe more importantly) to choose his own path across the water...he did a super job at not getting drowned/eaten and making his own way...



Once we got way out into the lake, the wind picked up a bit, blowing Ben's boat around, and some motorboats cruised by, making waves...I attached a rope from my canoe to Ben's, which allowed me to keep him on track, while still allowing him paddle and work on his skills and strength...yes, I checked back on him often enough to make me feel like an owl...


Here's a sweet, sweet, over-the-shoulder shot of Ben paddling the boat right behind me...


We got to Green Island without mishap, landed, and made ready for lunch...here's Ben working the kinks out after our long paddle...


The grass is always greener on the other side of the picnic...Ben was positive that my sandwich was better...so we shared...


After lunch (long before the 1-hour waiting period was up), we went for a swim, it was warm, we were a bit sweaty from the paddle, and somehow, a surprising amount of PB&J had covered both of us...this hold-out pic was fun...


I think Ben had a better time on the picnic and swim because he had "earned" it through his effort in paddling out to Green...


On the way back, we paddled faster, and Ben had more confidence and style and poise...


We made it more than halfway back before a motorboat from Colgate Camp did a donut around us, and the wave-stravaganza made Ben a bit uncomfortable, so I tied on for the last bit of the paddle home...he still paddled the whole time, and mostly kept slack in the line (which means that I was providing psychological support rather than physical towing)...

Later in the afternoon, Wendy's cousin and her daughter came over to play and talk, each according to their strengths, and a good time was had by all, even Anti-Sarah, who got very wet .05 seconds after this picture was taken...

Finally...Sunshine

After lots of rain and cloudy days, we had a perfect day today...


Ben has been having fun with some tattoos that Muz gave him, the latest addition is a 3rd eye...it's the one in the middle of his forehead...


We went on a canoe trip today, from Floodwood down to Follensby Clear...one of my favorite trips in the world...Ben and I went with Sarah and her girlfriend Wendy, who was new to paddling, but did a great job!


We will not tell you whose feet are whose, this shot was included to make up for the chop-job that my camera (balanced on a DEC sign-in sheet) did on the group picture above...


They all rode in our big Old Town Penobscot 17...as you can see, it was a beautiful day!


I took this picture back over my shoulder while paddling through the narrow river on the way down from Floodwood Pond toward Fish Creek and Follensby Clear Pond...


There were a couple of tight turns along the way, and a couple of beaver dams, but none of them were a match for our paddling...


When we stopped for lunch, Sarah showed off her new Gangsta toughness aided by the teeny-tiny bug tattoo on her neck...


When we had paddled all of the way down to Follensby Clear Pond, through Spider Creek, we had to paddle through a culvert, which is always fun, and requires yodelling!


the parking lot at camp looks like a Subaru and Honda and Old Town and Hornbeck sales lot...we have high enough hopes for tomorrow that we didn't bother unpacking the cars, in anticipation of another paddle tomorrow...

Finding windows in the weather

It rained this morning, and is raining again this afternoon, but there was a window of nice weather in the middle of the day, so after lunch Ben and I went down to the lake to enjoy the sunshine and splash around a bit...


We were having a great time just fooling around, and then we started playing with a huge inflatable tube that was awesome fun...we threw it at each other, flipped it around, and took turns diving off of the dock at it from various distances...


I started spinning it around as fast as I could, and found that as long as he doesn't actually drown, Ben has lots of fun being spun off of this thing at high speed...


Getting it whipping in one direction and then bracing/grabbing/reversing as a surprise had the highest level of success in sending him flying off and into the water...he always came back up to the surface, laughing and sputtering (although not always in that order)...


Despite the lessons I had learned from watching him on the thing, he finally convinced me to try it out, and he spun me as hard as he could...I helped centripetal forces out by sliding to the edge, and...


Eventually tipped over, splashing down almost right on top of him...he still thought that it was fun...


Gail was theoretically working for PSC and on her Doctorate on the boathouse deck up above, but got all of these pictures, and gave them to me to put in the blog...

Pretty Sunrise!

The dogs slept like logs last night, but woke me up at 5:30 for a walk down to the lake...we were greeted by a beautiful sunrise over Dry Island.

July 5th Festivities!

We had a fun time celebrating the 4th of July, and the fireworks over Upper Saranac Lake were great, but the rain on the 4th pushed lots of our plans for family and friends back by one day...


It was a beautiful morning, and the dogs and kids were in the water from the word go...


Autumn, Ayla, and Ben have been friends forever, and had a super time playing together all day, both in and out of the water...


There was a "Boat Parade" that came right by our dock, and the kids cheered each boat as it floated by...the first one was the SLVFD boat...


Following the SLVFD boat was a line of 20-30 great inboard motorboats, some of them incredibly old and huge...


The kids kept waving while they swam, and got lots of honks from the big and funky boats...


The dogs didn't pay much attention to the boat parade, swimming and fetching and shaking and splashing and leaping were the top priorities...Maggie is the yellow lab, Penny is the chocolate lab, Ripple is the big black lab, and Bonnie is the black lab puppy leaping into the fray in the pic above...


Here's a picture of my Mom giving Bonnie a break during one of the rougher play sessions between the dogs...they ran/swam full out all day long, and are now sleeping in piles of snoring wet fur all around us...


Yes, she ridiculously cute...


Penny is a little faster, Ripple is a better jumper/leaper, and Maggie is very earnest in her approach to fetching...


Gail took some time away from PSC and her doctoral work to enjoy the day, she is still offline, reading next to me as I type this...


The dogs watched passersby with rapt attention...ready to defend us from all squirrels and ducks, both foreign and domestic...


Cedar doesn't like swimming much, but Penny made frequent trips up the hill to visit with her brother, and to take a load off while we were eating lunch...


Patriotic brownies are a big part of what makes America great!


The same goes for awesome berries, and cool flag plate/bowls...


We all ate tons of food off of the grill and enjoyed the shade of the boathouse and the view of the lake for awhile before heading back to the water for the rest of the afternoon...


Topher and Becca have been coming to this celebration forever, and it was great to see them here today!


Gail put her feet up (something of a rarity, although she has nice feet...mine substituted into this picture would make you weep!) and took some pics during lunch, including this one of the lake and mountains and Dry and Goose islands...


While Brad and Lucio and Fuz went for a a paddle, we babysat Bonnie, and gave her a temporary tattoo on her sweet, sweet belly...a pirate flag in case you can't make it out...


This is a picture of the reading dock when they got back from their paddle...you can see Brad and Lucio in their kayaks ready to land...they don't know about the tattoo yet...


It was a spectacular day...great weather, great company, great food & drink, great swimming, great boating...

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh......