{boat-trastrophy}

We are borrowing my dad's boat for these last couple weeks of summer. A boat that I grew up on... a boat that I learned is just as old as me! I remember years past going out on the boat with my dad, brother, and sister and cruising around and doing some fishing. There were many a fun times out on my dad's boat! One of the times that I remember best (probably since it was one of the last times I was out on the boat) was when we went out and I brought my best friend Victoria along with us. We went fishing and I remember just having a great time! That was probably almost 8 or 9 years ago because it was before Ayden was born! That is a LONG time ago! I cannot believe that I have not been out on the boat since!

Given the fact that I really enjoy being out on the boat and that we were most likely not going to get out on Jay's parent's boat much this summer, I brought up the idea that maybe my dad would let us borrow his boat. He doesn't use it very often anymore. Actually he told me that he didn't have it out at all last summer and probably wouldn't have had it out at all this summer except for the fact that we wanted to borrow it and he took it out to make sure everything was working okay.

My dad, brother, and younger sister, Alexis, all went out fishing on the boat sometime last week to make sure everything was working properly... and at that point in time it was. I was excited to get the boat back to our place in Point and take it out on a new lake that Jay had heard about from his new co-workers. It was supposed to have some good fishing and it was small/calm enough for me to trust being out on the boat. (I have this habitual fear of tipping over in things and the last thing I want to worry about is capsizing a boat- that doesn't belong to me!)

We get the boat back to Point (and it doesn't quite fit in our garage as nicely as I thought it would). It would fit better if Jay didn't have a tool bench in the back of the garage... we literally like needed two more feet of room for the rest of the trailer hitch to fit in so the garage door could go all of the way down, but don't have it. In any case, we got it to fit most of the way and just put the garage down 3/4 of the way down instead and park a vehicle in front of the garage.

We couldn't take the boat out on Monday because of the threat of severe weather, but we packed everything up and headed out Tuesday night after Ayden's swimming lessons. Jay and I managed to get the boat into the water and were cruising along to find a good fishing spot... and... all of a sudden an alarm on the boat started to go off! OMG! I about had a heart attack and literally started to freak out! I made Jay get over to the shoreline as fast as possible because I was paranoid something horrible was going on! Like super paranoid. Thankfully, like I said, the lake is not that big and we were not super far from the boat landing and the lake was uber calm. We got close enough to shore, threw the anchor in, and shut the motor off. The boat wasn't leaking, praise the lord, but instead the motor was overheating. Thankfully if worse came to worse, we had an oar that we could have used to get back to the boat landing, could have flagged down another boat to tow us in, or in the extreme event would have used our cellphones to call 911 and have the police come get us out with one of their boats (they have the capability to do that, right?!).

While we were stopped, we let Ayden do a little bit of fishing. Thankfully I wasn't fully freaking out and he was pretty calm, as was Jay. We let the motor cool down for about an hour. During that time, Jay would test the motor by turning the key. He didn't have to start the motor to hear that the alarm was still sounding. He said that the alarm would go off once the motor cooled down enough. After a while the alarm did shut off and the motor started just fine. By this point I had calmed down enough to somewhat enjoy the fact that we were out on the boat and most likely not stranded and we decided to stay out for just a little while longer and even I fished for a little while. Ayden ended up being the only one to catch a fish, but that's okay. In the end, we got the motor started and hightailed it back to the boat landing as fast as we could (and safely as well) and got the boat out and back onto the trailer fine. I talked to my dad and Jay dropped it off at a boat repair place in town.  Needless to say, even after it gets fixed I will be nervous about taking it out.

We got off of the lake just in time because by the time we were back in the truck and on our way home there were severe weather warnings out and headed our way! Recently, anytime that Ayden hears a severe weather alert he starts to freak out. Jay and I think it might be due to the severe weather warnings we had a few months ago where we had to go into the basement for a while (they were tornado warnings), but each time we ‘escaped’ the weather with just a bit of a thunderstorm.

The weather didn’t really end up hitting us until around 10pm… both Ayden and I were still awake and it started to get pretty windy outside and honestly a little bit scary. At that point we decided to go camp out in the basement until the worst of it had passed. We may not have been in a tornado warning, but it sure sounded pretty bad outside! The power also went out around 10pm and we were without it until about noon the following day (I heard some people were without power for over 24 hours!). Turns out the Stevens Point area got hit with some pretty strong straight line winds. Thankfully by our place we did not have any tree damage, but out side of town looks bad! I haven’t seen too much house damage from just the winds, but there are A TON of trees down and in many instances the trees caused damage to the houses. Honestly, it was pretty scary there for a while, but we made it through unscathed!

I’ve joined the world of Pinterest today. I am addicted! It took all of about 10 minutes for me to become addicted. Like I need another time sucking thing on the computer. Actually, I don’t go on my computer all that much anymore, of course now I will, haha! It’s like a bookmarking site, only a lot better I think. It’s also sort of like googling images or going on Flickr. I have already found so many different wedding ideas and think I have come up with a color scheme. I know, gasp! I didn’t think I would have a color scheme, but I think I might have changed my mind. I mean I have less than 800 days until this wedding actually goes off so I better get planning asap, right?! Hehe!

I’ve also ‘pinned’ a lot of photography ideas and cool quotes that I like. If you haven’t already checked it out, I highly suggest it! You might just become addicted like I have, hehe! So maybe you shouldn’t check it out…

Time to get ready to take Ayden to his last day of swimming lessons for the summer. One more week of summer school, then it’s a Brewer’s game and I’m off to Colorado! Yippie!

CIAO! LOVE ME!