The Sandbar

Ok so this blog might just turn into a boating blog. 

Just kidding. 

Sort of. 

I actually didn't expect for us to get on the boat at all this past weekend. 

The forecast was again, pretty shitty. Although this time, not only did it say overcast and clouds, but it also said "rain likely and possible thunderstorms" well fuck. That's a big NO GO in my book.

So I was disappointed but whatever. I didn't want to get hung up on it.

The girls and I are in a video shoot (more on that later) and we needed to go out and get some new items for their wardrobe (I was a little irked that they weren't planning on dressing us, the last video we did we were provided the outfits AND we could keep them! I know, I know, bougie and spoiled. What can I say?)

ANYWAY. 

I could've used either weekend day to do this shopping. We hadn't gone clothes shopping in FOREVER.

It was a nice day out, we didn't have plans, Steve was working, so we decided to go Saturday. 

Us girls ended up having a very lovely day, actually. I love when that happens out of the blue. Very little bickering/fighting, easy shopping, laughter, etc. It was so nice. 

I picked out a few things for them, then I let them pick out a couple of things each.

Really cute outfits for Fall. 

Anyway, while we were at Old Navy, I got a text from Trista and she asked if we were planning on going on the boat at all this weekend...I was like...maybe but what about the weather?

She said that they were going to get their boat in the water that evening and tie it up at our friend's house, who lives in Sodus Point. (Where we were for blow off day). 

They were planning on boating Sunday. Even with the forecast. Apparently, the radar didn't seem so bad.

Ok, then! I just perked the fuck up and got super excited.

Still a tiny bit hesitant because of what my weather app showed.

Anyway. 

Steve is working on this Polaris RZR. I know, lots of side stories in this blog. Bear with me. 

He had to fix it before we left Sunday morning.

I wanted to leave the house by 10am. It's about an hour's drive north, and the morning weather seemed better than the afternoon. I didn't want to rush him though...since our boating excursion was last-minute. He didn't appear like he wanted to go...he wasn't in the best mood. 

But honestly, I didn't care. LOL. 

I wanted to get out on the water so badly. 

And...Steve doesn't have the...um...urgency gene. Like, AT ALL. 

Regardless, he finished up about 10am and we hit the road by 10:30. It was then that Rich called me. I was like FUCK. Being myself and overly dramatic, I immediately think "the weather turned and we haven't even left our town yet and we already can't go." UGH. 

But no, he just asked if we had driven through the monsoon yet. I told him we had just hit the road and he said that was likely for the better because the weather was moving through and it was nasty. 

We drove on up anyway and the weather really wasn't bad at all on the way up. I think we were just behind it because most of the way up it was sunny. You can tell a bad storm just ripped through, but the clouds moved and it was actually a nice drive up. 

We arrived at the marina and the sun was shining. 

We launched our boat without issues thankyouverymuch. 

There was a sailboat race going on! Very cool watching all these sailboats go by. 

My people (plus one of our friend's kids, so 5 boys on that boat with them!)

Remember I mentioned that we were having some engine/prop issues last time? We couldn't get up to speed easily, there was something wrong with the timing or something. I don't know. 

We took that prop off before this trip and we swapped it for another one. The "fancy" one that came with the boat as an extra actually didn't fit...so last minute we had to put on another extra. It was the same as the one we had used, but newer? 

Steve said he immediately felt a difference and the boat didn't lag AT ALL. We didn't experience ANY issues whatsoever this time.

As a passenger, I also felt that it felt more solid and less roaring and lagging. PHEW.

Steve said he was able to fully enjoy this outing because he wasn't thinking "oh shit" like he was last time (I didn't know he was feeling that way...poor guy). 

I'm telling you, if you don't have one of these Lily Pads, you should get one. 

A little wakeboarding

So the water over here was FREEZING. Like, suck the air out of your lungs freezing.

It was 61 degrees. 

I put my feet in and when I took them out, they "stung" because it was fucking cold. 

Trista and I and the kids did make it over to the little beach and it wasn't bad if we were directly in the sun and barely touching the water lol. But what's interesting, is that their oldest boy, Kenny also suffers from Cold Uticaria, which means he gets hives when exposed to cold. Whether it's cold air or cold water. JUST LIKE AVA.

Like, I've never heard of this fucking condition to begin with. Then my kid gets it and one of my best friend's kid ALSO get it? And no one else I know in my life has it, other than these two kids. 

Because of all of that, we decided to head over to the sandbar, where the water temp would be about 20 degrees warmer.

Getting my tan on

Snacks. All the snacks. 

#happy

Headed to the sandbar

Steve lost his hat on the way over. 

Of course.

Then wanted to turn around and try to go find it. 

We couldn't find it. 

We got to the sandbar and anchored with our friends. 

THE WATER FELT LIKE BATH WATER people. SO FUCKING WARM.

And it's the sandbar, so you can touch the bottom - it's only like waist-deep. I didn't get any pics from over there since I was in the water the whole time. 

The kids played, swam, did handstands, etc. So much fun. All the kids got along so well. As usual. 

I'd say we got to spend an hour or so there before the storm rolled in. 

We made it back to the boat launch right as it started to downpour. 

We got out boat loaded up and we headed home. 

And we made it home by 4pm and I immediately got started on dinner for us.

Baked pork chops and mashed potatoes. Girls wanted spaghetti and meat sauce so I made them that. 

It was an unexpected, awesome Sunday. We spent a solid 3 hours on the boat. Totally worth it. 

And I know I already said it and I don't want to be greedy, but I want just one more day on the boat this season. 

And I might just try wakeboarding next time, too. 

Water Pump

It's been a while since I've talked about our life here out in the country.

Usually that means that things are going well and there's not much to report on.

I had blogged before about our water situation.

We get our water through a well. 

You know when you're out in the country and tap water smells like sulfur? Yeah, we didn't want that. 

And as Steve once put it "there's nothing like working in a shop, sweating your ass off in 90-degree weather, only to get into a 'refreshing' shower that smells like rotten eggs"

So yeah. 

We installed a water treatment system so we could have drinkable tap water (we have reverse osmosis drinking water, actually), and not feel like horrible parents bathing our children in legit DIRTY ASS WATER. 

Then we installed a 400-gallon water tank in our basement so we wouldn't run out of water. (After it had happened way too many times).

And then our pump started to take on water and fail.

Steve had to "fix it" several times and it wasn't reliable. 

Mind you, this was our second pump.

The first one shit the bed and we realized it the day we got home from a 7-day long beach vacation. 

And had zero water. 

We always had shitty water pressure.

I remember once buying a water-sprinkler-type thing for the girls and tried using it with our hose. Like, the water dribbled out of it. We ended up bringing it to Steve's parents' house. 

But you know, we just dealt with it.

It's not exactly cheap to keep replacing the pumps...and when we can't really figure out WHY they keep failing on us...ugh.

So Steve recently decided to bite the bullet and bought us a "semi-commercial-grade" water pump. Don't ask how much it cost. Easily 8X the amount of our older pumps. 

This is our water treatment system

Steve installed this himself and it's not a "plug and play" so he had to wire it into our electrical system and added an on/off switch (he added that piece of wood)

Here it is, next to our water tank. 

So yeah. 

It didn't seem to take him that long to install it.

I cannot believe the difference.

When I used the shower for the first time, the second I turned on the water, a gust of wind like blew in my face from the pressure. LOL.

I felt like it was going to blast my skin off it was so powerful.

Steve said it's only on like 50% power. WUT.

We now feel much more confident that this won't fail us. It's meant to handle a LOT. 

But seriously. The amount of work we have done to this house just to have water. 

WATER. 

As much as we'd love the city to come down our way with water, after talking with Farmer Matt, he kinda convinced us otherwise. 

He said that if water comes down our road, it'll just be bought by land developers. No one wants it now because there's no access to public water. No water pipes. It's not easy having commercial property out here without public access to water/sewage. So I kinda get that.

I love that there are no subdivisions around our house.

We believe Farmer Matt and one other family own basically this entire stretch of road, so we're pretty confident subdivisions won't get TOO close. We have 8 acres to ourselves so that is at least a decent barrier and we will NEVER have direct neighbors on either side of us (we have one, but we own up to the land divide and Farmer Matt owns the other side, so no one can build in between us).

Hopefully, this is another (big, expensive) thing we can cross off our list and not deal with for a while.

The first pump failed us in 2018 and we've had ongoing issues ever since. 

So yeah, 3 years is along enough to deal with periodically just not having the ability to access the 400 gallons of water in your basement. 

Chimney Bluffs

Welp.

Our second trip out on the boat has validated my dream for finally having a boat and being on the water. 

We did, however, notice that something wasn't quite right after we launched.

And to our horror, we ended up being those assholes when we launched our boat. LOL.

Steve was SO concerned with all the little things and the big things - THE DRAIN PLUG - that he forgot to remove the tie down straps from the trailer to the boat. LOL. I can't even.

I'm sweating my ass off trying to pull the boat off the trailer (only having Mila to help me) and every time Steve pulled the truck out of the launch, he'd drag me with him. Like WTF is happening?

A very nice Captain, named Mark came over and helped. He was like "it's caught on something"

Haha.

Hahahaha.

Our friend comes over and is like "did you undo the tie downs?" and as soon as he said it, I started to laugh.

Here's the thing. Steve and I don't yell at each other during stressful times like this (arguing is a whole different story) but in these types of situations, we just never fight. It's weird.  Quick side story: we once built a shed out in the searing heat in July for 10 hours straight and never once got in an argument). 

So Captain Mark is like "wow, he didn't even yell at you" and I'm like "well, first of all, it wasn't MY fault that he forgot the tie straps. I went and did my job, which was pay for us to be there, get the kids ready, got our ropes out, fenders out. Sunscreened the kids, got the lilypad situated, so um...yeah, he's not yelling at me."

But here's the other thing. Steve doesn't get flustered that easily. Like the world could be collapsing and he'd be like "okay, well, let me go get a drink of water first" lol. He's just not that guy.

So he's just laughing at himself for forgetting to undo the tie downs.

And as he's walking back from parking the truck and trailer, I yell out "WELL YOU WOULDN'T BE STEVE RUPLE IF YOU DIDN'T DO THAT."

Because this is his life. Everything like this happens to him. We were shocked when we took her out on our maiden voyage and it went smoothly. LOL. 

He just hung his head and laughed. 

ANYWAY.

After that hilarious debacle, we got out on the water. 

And then he realized that he couldn't get to top speed. It was lagging.

We could then we couldn't. I could feel the engine roaring.

But we finally did get her going. 

Their favorite spot

Boating with friends 👏

I had been watching the forecast all week because at this late stage of summer, you just never know. It had been forecasted to be cloudy, but warm. Like, not even partly sunny. Straight up clouds.

The drive up was nice leaving Canandaigua, sunny and warm. As we got closer to the Point, it was much more overcast. 

Then when we actually launched the boats...the sun was peeking, but still very cloudy. 

I didn't have high hopes for any sort of sun. 

Anyway, we get to the Chimney Bluffs and Rich hopped on our boat. After driving it around a bit it was determined it had something to do with the prop, RPM's, and weight in the front. I dunno.

But man. 

Once we anchored...this is my dream come true. Minus the clouds. 

See? Clouds. So many clouds. 

#mytwoboys

But then...the sun started to come out! I was so happy to see that things were clearing up. Rich took his family for some wakeboarding fun while we anchored and hung out. 

Sunny enough that we had to get the Bimini up

BEST INVESTMENT EVERRRRR.

#happy

My girl. 

We spent a decent amount of time together on the sun pad, just chatting and eating snacks. Nothing better. 

Ava took a break in the shade. I was a little worried about her mood...she wasn't overly excited...

On the sunpad getting my tan on

Daddy-Daughter time

But then, after just sunbathing, Mila and I went over to the little beach to find sea glass and other cool rocks. This perked Miss Ava up and she wanted to swim over also and hang with us. I could touch (just barely) getting out of our boat and the water was SO warm. 

Trista and I hung out on the beach and chatted while all the kids played. We went back and forth a couple of times to get drinks, help kids, etc. and it was just perfect. 

The clouds moved out of the way and the sun came out and it ended up being literally the most perfect weather. It was 80 and sunny. 

Looks like we're missing one kid. I love all of these kids so much. Trista and I are secretly hoping for a Schimpf/Ruple wedding. 

Rich's boat. Such great shape for also being an older boat (I believe it's also a '94). 

#myhappyplace

I cropped our boat out of this pic and sent it to Rich. His boat, alone on the water with the big, blue sky is just too pretty.

After the Bluffs, we took a nice boat ride before going back to the dock. We didn't have any issues getting up to speed, but we definitely need to look into it. 

The Schimpfs

Literally, so handsome.

#myhappygirl

We had an amazing time and I cannot wait to do it (at least) one more time before summer is over. 

When we left (around 5pm), the girls did NOT want to get out of the water. It took Ava a bit of time to get into the right mood but once she was having a good time, it was hard to get her to get out of the water. 

They found some really pretty BIG rocks and kept swimming them over to the Lily Pad. They were convinced we were going to take them all home. I kept telling them to go back and find more rocks and they easily swam back and forth, back and forth, carrying large rocks for like an hour. It was hilarious. Like, they must've been tired!

I was like "I see a shiny one way over there!" hahaaha. My poor kids. 

They slept like ROCKS (haha pun, intended!).

Sun, fun, and great friends. There's nothing better. 

Winding Down

Well if you can believe it, summer is almost over! 

School officially starts for the girls on Thursday, September 9.

I'm on PTO Tuesday, September 7, and Wednesday, September 8. 

This will give me plenty of time to get them ready for school again.

5 days a week! We got the new guidance email from the school yesterday.

We only have about 3 weeks left until the first day.

I can't believe how fast summer vacation went by.

I mean, I get that it's only really like 10 weeks. When I was a kid it felt like forever and now that I'm an adult...man 10 weeks is nothing. 

We've had a very rainy summer. I'm not exactly complaining since we need the water out here and I'd prefer not to run out of water because I decided to shower, run the dishwasher and do a load of laundry within a 6-hour span thankyouverymuch. 

However, I'm hoping we have warm-ish weather as we head into September.

Now that we have a boat, I want to be on the water as much as possible! 

It's just a nice way to soak up the last few days of summer. 

Part of me is looking forward to more structure and routine. 

I'm not the fly by the seat of your pants kinda lady and sometimes it drives me nutty. 

But I also understand that the kids need it. They need to get their butts to bed earlier and start waking up earlier. 

They need to stop watching tablets and start brushing their hair. 

They are spending a couple of nights at my mom's for the next 3 weeks. We don't have childcare 2 days a week while Steve is working (back on Thursday/Friday/Saturday) and since I have to work too...it's just easier to have them spend that time at my mom's...getting spoiled.

Also when school starts, they won't be able to spend as much time over there. So we all benefit.

I can't believe Summer is almost over! 

Maiden Voyage

COME ON YOU GUYS. I'M SO EXCITED. 

So We Did A Thing

You guys.

It was a bit unexpected.

I mean. 

Kind of.

We've been talking about it for years. 

But we've never been serious.

There's always just so much shit going on. Taking on another thing just doesn't make sense.

Until it does.

See this platform? That's where I'll be. 

Yeah, dude.

We bought a boat.

It's an OLD boat.

Like, 1994 old. 

It needs a LOT of TLC and elbow grease.

But I think it's a GREAT starter boat.

You know, since we don't really know boats.

Even though I have my boating license lol. (Do I technically have TWO? since I took Steve's test? LOL)

We also didn't spend a lot of money on it.

**patting myself on the back for NOT spending a shit ton of money on a boat**

Since we're new at boating, if we ding her up a little, we won't feel so bad.

If we don't get a chance to be out on the water as much as we wanted to...we won't feel so bad.

We are paying for it in cash, so we won't have any payments to worry about.

The interior needs a lot of TLC and I cannot wait to get in there to start cleaning it. 

The vinyl seats have some rips and tears, but not as bad as I would think for a boat that is 27 years old.

It was given to the owner by his parents, who bought it from the original owner who bought it new. 

It's a 1994 Mariah Barchetta Z 192.

It was a new Bimini top, new outdrive, and trim engine (the thing that makes the propellor go up and down). 

It also includes a cover. 

It has one new captain's chair, which is white and the rest of the vinyl is tan...so that will bother me.

We are going to look for a new seat for the passenger side and perhaps put new vinyl upholstery on the other seats (definitely for the open bow seats). The seats across the back aren't terrible - some tearing along the seams, but the open bow seats are in rougher shape. One side is decent, the other side has a bad hole. 

I'm SO excited you guys. I mean, it's definitely a "project boat" but I'm pumped for it! 

We're freaking boat people now and I'm so fucking excited. 

Maybe we'll keep it a few years before upgrading. 

Let's be honest, I just wanna be on the water, so I'm not going to be picky about what kind of vessel I'm on. 

I bought this cleaner so as soon as the boat is here, I can get in there and start working. I want to get this thing as clean as possible on the inside and will use a toothbrush if I have to. The weather should be decent this weekend, so I plan to be out there with some music scrubbing away. 

Also, Steve's friend started a detailing business (actually started out with Steve gifting him his very expensive cleaning supply kit for his Mustang when he sold it) so this guy always says "it's because of you dude" haha. Glad he could help him. 

Let's just say his business took off and he's doing VERY well. 

So well that he said he can do our boat (the outside is VERY faded) and getting her looking almost new - but he's booked until OCTOBER. 

YEAH.

But that's ok. This gives us time to get to know this boat and get her on the water a couple of times before the season is over. He'll nee the boat for 3-4 days to get it done. 

We are also talking to another guy we know who upholsters seats. Steve's buddy knows a guy. 

Everyone knows a guy lol. 

So, hopefully, we'll be able to reupholster these seats over the winter? Or early in the season next year. 

You guys. 

I'm so fucking excited. We might be on our boat by this weekend. 

The only thing at this point holding us up is getting the boat in the water to "test drive" it. We want to make sure this OLD boat floats, runs, etc. as it should. 

So our friend gave Steve some pointers on what to look for. 

Here's the thing.

This boat isn't costing us a fortune. 

At all.

So we're debating flipping it or keeping it, depending on how nice we get it and what value it holds. 

Ideally, we'll have a nicer, bigger, newer boat in the next few years...but ya never know. 

When we went to go look at it initially, it's being held at a self-storage facility, so it's not in the water. The owner offered to put it in the water for us. We are doing that Thursday - we offered to launch it in the canal near to where this guy works, but he offered to put it in the lake near our house, to be able to get it up to speed.

Seems like a nice gesture and a confident guy about his boat. So, I'm super excited to try it out! It's also supposed to be like 90 on Thursday so being out on the water will be nice. I'll just be going for the ride as Steve looks into the mechanics and other parts we should be looking at. 

Fingers crossed!

Working Out - 60 Weeks Into My Fitness Journey - LATE!

Sorry I'm late!! With my dad being in town and just general busy-ess, I failed to post my 60th-week fitness update! 

Gong-Gong's Visit

So what do you do with a 77-year-old grumpy man? 

He was grumpy when I was growing up.

But we still had a great relationship.

You know, there's the fun one and the boring one?

That could be us.

My dad is the quiet type. 

The type that walks ahead of you at the mall. 

Sends money instead of gifts for birthdays and holidays.

Sometimes calls. 

Has hugged me maaaaybe 50 times. And those hugs were almost always initiated by me.

But, I love that old man.

And I know he loves us. 

Even when he has a hard time showing it. 

There's not much to do 'round these parts.

I mean, Steve and I are both working some days.

We always have things to do around here, but not like fun things. lol.

Chores? 

Feeding chickens, mowing the lawn, taking care of everything. It's a lot of work.

So my dad is just hanging out. 

Probably similar to what he was doing back at his home, in Las Vegas where it's like 110 degrees. So he's stuck inside. 

He'll come out and hang when we go to the pool. 

We eat dinner together. I think he just enjoys being around the hustle and bustle that is our family.

Sometimes I think he misses the quiet, lol.