The next few days were spent much of the same…

Most of us decided to join the boys upstairs on the deck under the stars to sleep. We dragged our bed mattresses up (there were already some up there for the 7 boys), staked out a spot, watched the stars twinkle at night, listened to the hilarious 11-16 year old boy talk (with everyone adopting 14 year old Tanner’s voice and preference of calling everyone Chief and Speedy). Let’s just say there was a lot of farting noises coming from the boys who dominated the center of the deck.

The only downfall was the horizon was light around 5, and the sun was up shortly after. Which meant our day started, every day, around 6-6:30 am (when we slept in).

The kids ate a healthy breakfast of sugar cereal, pop tarts, or pogos/corndogs (thanks, Jo) and were begging Uncle Fun Dip (as Andreas was tenderly referred to) to take them out on the water in the boat.

Needless to say, by 10 am, it felt like we should be calling it a day!

We rented a different water toy each day to keep everyone entertained. Tubing, water skiing and knee boarding were the rotations. Most kids tried everything. Jo and Andreas were pretty patient teaching everyone how to water ski. I even attempted, but my age showed when I pulled my hamstring on the one time I got close to making it up. The kids, on the other hand, popped up so quickly! They had a blast!

We had all agreed to participate in having Secret Buddies (Jo assigned everyone a name). While it was a pain to lug all the Secret Buddy gifts in our luggage, it sure was a hit! Creative people we have on board! The kids loved it, and I even suspect the adults enjoyed their little gifts too!

When not on the boat, everyone swam around, went on the slide, did some reading, played tons of cards and other games (not really sure what they were always playing, but someone was always playing).

We often just sat or lay around and chatted, catching up on stories over the years, comparing notes on parenting, and discussing our lives in general. The kids coloured each other’s hair and got to know Shaun, and his new friend Squishy (who almost got away from us in a storm, but was saved by Uncle Jamie)!

We also spent a fair bit of time complaining about the toilet etiquette (Rob gave everyone a toilet etiquette lesson, but I’m not sure that helped), the spiders, the mouse, and were amused by the amount of food that we had brought.

Every day someone would make a marina run to exchange the water toy, get some more ice and even make a trip to Walmart.

On most days, at least a few people went and explored the area by foot.

It was just so low key.

And just so good.

By night, things we had done in the morning felt like days ago. We often were all tucked in by 9:30 (after having some campfire time, of course).