It's the first hour of my first day back to work after a nice long vacation, and I'm already wasting time on the Internet! Well, I just thought I should update before things get crazy around here, OK?
I took last Friday off to go down to SL and spend some time with my dad, since I would be missing Father's Day. We went mountain biking in the morning, then he spent the early afternoon working on his boat while I napped in the hammock, beneath the most beautiful maple tree ever. Eventually, we made it out to the lake, just in time for my dad to be a hero once again.
***Exciting story***
So there we are, floating in the middle of the lake, enjoying the sunshine and contemplating a swim, when we notice a SeaDoo boat with steam coming out of its stern. It wasn't getting any lighter, so we sped over to see what was going on. There are two women and one man in the boat, and two little girls and another man floating on a raft-type thing. The boat driver starts flagging us down (Mistake #1: He had done no signaling prior to seeing us heading his way) and tells us there is a fire on the boat. So Dad tells the two women, both of whom are wearing life jackets to get in the water and swim to the platform at the back of our boat. One women has no problem with this; the other starts panicking, saying she can't swim. "You've got a life jacket on. You'll be fine," says my dad, and one doesn't argue with that stern of a tone. So she bails into the water, doesn't even get her hair wet, and starts freaking out. "I can't breathe! I can't do this!" Then, once the other women has hauled her to the platform: "I can't get up! I'm not strong enough!" Having none of this, my dad unceremoniously hauls her up by one arm.
While all this was happening, Dad had given the man our fire extinguisher (Mistake #2: It's illegal, not to mention stupid, to not have a fire extinguisher on board) but he couldn't figure out how to use it. So with the women in the boat and the smoke getting thicker and blacker, we got the man in the boat as well. Then we picked up the little girls and the other man, and sped off across the lake. No one wanted to stick around long enough to find out whether this boat was going to blow up, because by this time, flames were coming out of the engine compartment.
I called 911 on the way to the family's house and got the fire department out there. Once everyone was safely ashore, we ran back over and picked up three firemen in our boat. They had Dad drive really close to the burning boat - which was totally engulfed in flames and thick, balck smoke - so they could attack in with their fire extinguishers. The boat drifted closer and closer to shore, until it rested against the bank and a fire truck could put out the flames from the road.
By the way, I said my dad was a hero once again. A number of years ago, he jumped from a moving ski boat onto a runaway JetSki to keep it from crashing into shore. He's going to become a legend out there.
***Back to the vacation update***
Saturday was Mitch's grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary bash up near Cadillac. We got there around 10:30 am to help with set-up, and then spent the rest of the day keeping the food stocked and getting introduced as "Carla's youngest son, Mitch, and his wife, Laurie." A ton of people attended and his grandparents really enjoyed it. The rest of the family kept saying, "This enver would've gone off without the DeYoung kids," because Mitch and his siblings (plus us married-ins) were the only grandkids busting their butts before, during and after.
We spent Saturday night camped out in the grands' front yard, trying to beat the heat with our well-ventilated tent. Oh, and we had to go to the bathroom in the trees because his grandma locked us all out at 11 pm. Haha. Hope none of the neighbors were driving by as I bared my bottom!
Sunday morning, we skipped out on "the big breakfast" (translation: a mishmash of leftovers from the part, plus eggs) in favor of Bob Evans and the chance to beat the rain to TC for some mountain biking. No luck there, but we did get to visit Adrienne in her new place and take a much-needed shower. Eventually we met Christa, Brian, Minda, Derek and the kiddos at the cottage we were renting for the week, but it was so rainy we couldn't do anything but sit around inside. We did go grocery shopping and make pizzas for dinner, and it dried up enough for a campfire in the evening. The three couples played Nertz well into the night (that night and every night) and I think, by the end of the trip, we had each won once.
On Monday we went to the beach in TC to kill some time before Jeff and Carla got up there. It was really hot but the water in the bay was too cold for swimming. In the afternoon, Mitch and I took Minda and Derek wine tasting on the Leelanau Peninsula. More campfire, more Nertz, more sleep.
Tuesday we went canoeing with Minda, Derek, Christa and Brian. This was the most fun canoe trip I've been on in a long time! It wasn't too long and the water was warm so splashing was actually fun! We laughed so much and I got some fun photos with my new digital camera. (Old camera got sand in it and it was going to cost just about as much to fix it as to replace it, so we upgraded.) After canoeing, we met Jeff, Carla and the kids at the beach, where we relaxed for a bit before heading to the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes. We didn't walk all the way to Lake Michigan because the others would be waiting too long, but we did enough to make my thighs a bit sore.
Wednesday was our last day, and we didn't do much in the morning but ride about four miles of mountain biking trail reminscient of Cadillac. (Translation: Hilly) When we got sick of sitting around, we kidnapped Minda and Derek for more wine tasting - this time on Old Mission Point - and eventually met the rest of the gang back at the Dunes for the scenic drive. We got back home around 9 pm and spent the evening fighting the idea of going back to work.
Wow, it's taken me the whole day to get around to finishing this, but here you go. I'll post photos on my Yahoo site soon...though I'm not sure anyone is particularly interested in seeing family vacation photos! Look at that, time to pack up and go home!
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