Row row row your boat

We took the boats out for the first time this year (and for the first time in a couple of years because things just haven't worked out to get them out in awhile). The Boy got to paddle his own boat which he thought was the COOLEST thing ever. Ms Thang rode in the tandem with me and my mom. She was pretty impressed with the tricks RF was doing in "the little boat" but not terribly impressed with actually being in the boat. In the past, Mom has sat in the front of the boat and held the kids. One trip, she felt she needed a paddle because she wanted to help paddle the boat. The problem is that you have to work a lot harder to control the boat from the front and the back person needs to be the one in charge. She is a control freak and wouldn't either stop paddling or listen when I told her to do something. That adventure ended with me telling her to "put the damn paddle away before I beat you with mine" Since then, we don't even take a paddle for her because life is better for everyone. Today, she got it in her head that she needed her own paddle. Apparently, she forgot the threatened beating. I argued and argued with her about it but she refused to give in. We got to the lake and unloaded and as we were getting the paddles out and together, we discovered that we had 3 female paddles and only 1 male paddle. Meaning, I was the only one who got a split paddle and she had to sit in the front and entertain her grandchild and not irritate me with the paddle. Apparently, the universe agreed with me that she needed to leave it alone!

RF was playing in his boat, doing a few tricks but decided that the water was really too cold to be under too often (although he says it wasn't "January 1st cold" so it is warmer than other water he has been in). MT was unimpressed with being in the boat in general. She really wanted to do it, in theory so maybe she'll grew into a little bit as summer goes on. We paddled around the lake, under the bridge and then back. The kids got out and had a snack, then dad took TB back out and pulled him around under the bridge. RF, MT and my mom took the tandem and I took pictures of everybody that will likely never see the light of day because I'm a big slacker like that. :)

Now, I'm watching the new American Gladiators and then I'm getting ready for bed.

Tomorrow, I need to clean up the house (especially the kitchen) then we have a cookout in the afternoon. Hopefully MT does ok with the dog that will be at the cookout because her drama queen freak outs irritate the snot out of me.