We recently spent a few days at the floating cabin owned by Adam’s family. I sometimes forget how strange this concept is for people who don’t live in BC – it was definitely a bit of a learning curve for this former prairie-girl, but now it seems completely normal that my mom lives on a floating house and Adam’s family owns a floating cabin and that these are EXACTLY what they sound like. A house (or cabin) that…floats. In the middle of a lake or ocean or whatever. Some people in town will, when trying to make the distinction between the two, ask if you have a floating cabin or a “land cabin”.
Oh, BC. You’re adorable.
Anyway, the last time we were there, I looked like this:
and this and this:
Oh my gosh. That belly. I have said it a million times but I MISS that belly.
Anyway this trip was very exciting for us because it’s the first time Olive had been to the cabin, (out of utero, that is) and we couldn’t wait for her to experience it.
Anyone who has had children knows the strange experience of taking the same vacation twice, once with and once without kids. And to this end, this trip was veerrrrry different.
We hauled a playpen and high chair and potty and diapers and and and and AND, but it was totally worth it to see Livvie ooh-ing excitedly at the lake and trying to eat the logs and climb the stairs and escape onto the deck .
Because it’s a floating cabin and we don’t yet know if Olive is a floating baby, we didn’t let her go out onto the deck unless she was being carried by someone. This works well for now, as she was pretty happily entertained by all of her new surroundings, and a few times she crawled to the door and just sat there, calmly watching the goings on at the lake surrounding us (exciting stuff, you know. Ducks and frogs and rainstorms)
This trip was very same-same-but different. Fun and exciting and meaningful but NOTHING like the trip last year which was all cold-cherry eating and sunbathing and leisurely reading books and beating Adam at scrabble games which lasted so long we ran out of letters.
We had pretty rainy weather for the last two days, but managed to take a quick putt around the lake in the little aluminum. Adam made a cozy nest in the front for O and I, and we nestled in and napped while he trawled for fish.
I could have stayed here forever.
We puttered around the lake and adventured up a small river, and Adam only got his fishing rod caught in the trees twice once!
Please note the lawn chair.
I feel I need to explain the lawn chair as you may have noticed it in the picture above as well.
Adam likes to get his redneck on and rig up the aluminum boat with the chair when he takes it out. This causes me no end of embarassment and I have no idea why because we are literally the only people living on the lake but DAMN you are messing with my Notebook fantasies here, dude. Noah Calhoun would have NEVER messed around with a plastic lawn chair.
I mean really.
Olive absolutely LOVES boats. We went slow enough, and the boat was deep enough that she could stand up and look around, and I just held onto her little life jacket handle, and she found a handle of her own and that’s how she saw the lake. My water baby!
While Adam fished, I schooled Olive in the essential skill of taking selfies, which are very important to me. It’s not a vacation album without at LEAST five selfies. Lucky Olive gets to get in on the action now!
I’m not sure she quite gets it yet, and always ends up with this bewildered expression on her face and then I am put in the awkward position of choosing a picture where I look good, or a picture where my BABY looks good, and, well, I think we all know which one I chose here:
Actually this one might be a draw.
I think she’s improving though, take a look at this MySpace circa 2004 “moodily looking off into the distance” selfie:
“Ooooh”
As much as she loved the boats I kind of felt bad for her because she was so utterly powerless against them. Five minutes in my arms with the motor on and she was OUT.
Every time.
Aaaaand that was Adventure #8!
Summer is drawing to a close, and I think this might be the last adventure. I am brushing off my resume and preparing to go back to work, and that is all I am going to say about that because if I think about being away from Olive for 8 hours a day (three quarters of her awake time!!) I will cry.
So. Here is another pretty picture!
