Rollins Lake

Labor day fun continued when we joined Brad and Natalie on their boat at Rollins Lake.  They invited us to give us a chance to see how Nate would do at Wakeboarding.

Here's Brad backing the boat into the water

Nate felt right at home on the boat. He was super excited to go spend the day on the lake.

Waiting for the rest of us to join them

Nate felt better with his goggles on

I liked the shot here, where you can see us in the rear view mirror

Maria tried wakeboarding again.  She got up again, and this time stayed up for awhile, really got the hang of it.

I gave it a few tries at the wake surfing

My results not quite as good as Maria's

I wanted to try the wakeboarding, but my feet are too big for the boards they brought. 

So I crashed, again.

Rollins has this area, very shallow beach area and all the boats would hang out and play their music and swim in the water.  Felt like a sort of private yacht club.  

Maria and Nate enjoying the cool water and hot sun.

Took Nate on a walk up the beach, following the river inland for a little adventure and exploration.

Nate getting some instruction on how to pop up out of the water.

Brad took several tries close to the boat so Nate could get the feel of it. 

He's all ready to go, looks like a natural.

A little more pre-work and we're ready to go.  All smiles and fun at this point, couldn't wait to get started.

This video shows Nate getting lessons from Brad on how to wake board and even getting up right on the back edge of the boat.

This is Nate's attempt at getting up.  You can see he gets up, but not for long.  He tried too quickly to turn the wakeboard and couldn't hold it.  I think a few more times and he'd get it, but we wore him out with the two tries behind the boat.

After his second attempt, he was done.  He hung on a little too long trying to get and stay up and got pulled in the water.  Said his forearms hurt and he was really sad.  Didn't want to do it anymore.  I'm still proud that he tried and he got up more than I did.  After a few hours of rest he says he's ready to try again.

Summer at Northstar

To kick start our Labor Day Weekend, we decided to head up to Northstar at Tahoe, for their annual Blizzard tent sale.  Figured we'd do some shopping for some used ski equipment to prepare for the winter and make a day of it on the mountain.

We asked the Eimer's if we could bring Alyssa with us for Nate to have someone to play with and they obliged, so we brought her along.

In addition to the tent sale, Northstar had this guy on stilts making balloon animals. Although he made what looked like a basic ribbon, something I could even do, and handed it to Alyssa.  She got all excited about her ribbon and that's as far as he got in making a "animal"

On the Gondola to mid-mountain

Here you can see the amazing balloon ribbons, along with Alyssa's flirtation with the camera. 

At mid-mountain we walked over to the chair lift to take us closer to the top. You can see all the downhill bikers , many in full battle armor.  Looked fun, but very dangerous.  

From the lift, grabbed this shot of one of the bikers heading down.

Maria and Alyssa stayed behind while Nate and I hiked the remaining 400 vertical feet from the top of vista express to Mt Pluto, which rests at 8160ft.  With the low altitude it was very tiring.

I was super proud of Nate, he was a real trooper to make it all the way up.

We took a few breaks or photos

You can see one of the ski runs here

Nate got to take some photos of me at the top.  Looks the same and very different from many ski photos we took from the same spot. 

Maria and Alyssa watching Nate as he hopped on the bounce/bungee machine. Alyssa had her turn while Nate and I were hiking.

Nate on the bounce machine.  I think it's his third time trying it. He's getting much better, doing lots of flips and things now.

We finished the day at Northstar with some frozen yogurt for the kids. then hopped int he car and headed home, where we met Tonya and Barry at Mikuni for sushi dinner.  As we were waiting for the table, The slaters showed up int heir new car and joined us.  Great way to end the day.

Getting old...er

Well, it finally happened.  I reached that magical round number 40.  Had a great time getting here and can't wait to coast downhill the rest of the way.  We through one final party for everyone who hadn't been able to attend any of our previous celebrations.

The "other" Mike who also turns 40 this year, brought over a Slushee machine. On the left we have for the adults a rum runner, or as Brad called the following day Poison.  On the right, for the kids country time lemonade.  The kids finished their side, adults just got finished.

I smoked carnitas and chicken, and we had a Mexican themed party with all the fixings.

The pool was well utilized by the kids

For the party, the men took a turn and celebrated a bit more than the women.

The women stood back and watched the show the boys put on. 

Thought this was a great shot of Emily

The cupcakes Maria bought to celebrate, which was served along with some homemade ice cream, in coffee, mint, nectarine and chocolate peanut butter flavors.

"I love you man", I'll regret this in the morning

My new apron that the Cottles got me for my birthday. 

Houseboat

We had an amazing weekend on Lake Shasta celebrating my 40th birthday.  August 10-13th, we rented a houseboat on the lake and enjoyed the warm weather, boating, relaxing and the Perseids meteor shower.  Captain Brad organized the trip, never easy to do when you have so many people interested in going.  While not all my friends could be there to celebrate we had a well rounded group.

First up, the girls, Natalie, Maria, Criselda, Martha & Lilia

And the boys, Captain Brad, Mike, Michael, Steve, Scott & Brad. Yes, that's two Brad's & two Mikes .

Here' our houseboat.  First impression, cramped quarters, glad we didn't have the full15 people it slept on board, 11-13 is the max I'd want to be comfortable.  The walls are very thin, you can hear everything.  There were only 2 real bedrooms, the rest were separated by drapes or less.  Girls were nervous about the two bathrooms on board.  Rule was when you had to go #2, you yelled turn up the music!

Brad and Natalie, our neighbors across the street brought their boat. While we've seen it in front of their house, it was the first time we'd actually been on it.  What a lot of fun having a boat can be and They were so great to bring it and share with us.  Brad drove everyone through their different water activities, wake boarding, skiing, knee boarding, inner tubing and even surfing.  I can't give them a big enough thanks for all the fun they brought with the boat.

Maria and Lilia enjoying the upper deck of the houseboat.  Lot's of sun, 108 degree heat 

Mike taking a spin at wake boarding.  He picked it up easily.

Criselda stated she had always wanted to try wake boarding and here she got her chance to try it, get up and enjoy it.  Success!

The video above is Maria getting up, and falling on the wake board.

I had never heard of surfing on a lake before.  While Brad's boat had a hard time getting enough of a wake that it could be done without a rope, we were still able to try.  Here's mike getting up on the surf board.  To get this to work properly you need a ballast in the boat, to get it to produce a larger wake and then as you get going you can drop the rope and ride the wave behind.  We watched the Hyperlite guys do it on their boat.

Here's Lilia about to try surfing.  Note there is no boot straps or anything to hold your feet in.  I gave this a shot as well, but I was not successful.

For lunch Brad cooked up a Tri-tip with some sausages.  We ate really well on the trip.  We had pulled pork, beef tenderloin and chicken.  Everyone pitched in on sides and lots of leftovers.  We clearly over packed food and under packed the Mexican beer.

Steve, a friend of Brad and Natalie's from San Jose and Owner of Mel Cotton's sporting good store, brought a floating island along.  This was used both as an extra rest area and pulled behind the boat for a bit.  Brad even spent the last night sleeping on it.

Brand and Natalie's son Brodie is a professional wake board rider for the Hyperlite team.  By coincidence, the Hyperlite team were having their end of year party on Shasta the same time we were there.  They were on the BIG houseboat, the one we originally looked at for our group when we had more people going.  Having them there, we got to see some of their performances, truly amazing stuff.

We raided the Hyperlite Houseboat, so we could climb to the third deck and take a jump into the lake.

While not coordinated, I did jump several times.  Talk about a rush.

On Brad's jumps, he attempted to do a Jack Knife, but instead did a sort of Back Knife.  Ouch!

It may be hard to see here, but on the tube is a photographer, and further back is Brodie, mid-air of a Wake board jump.  Very impressive stuff.

Mike giving Brad a big "I Love You Man!"

Natalie doing some surfing.

Brad chilling between runs down the slide.

And there he goes!

This video shows the brave duo who were the first to go off our boat's slide.  First up is Lilia, followed by Martha.  Martha's didn't quite finish the back flip, so we had to mark her score down a bit.

Much time was spent floating on the lake, hiding from the heat.

Mike and I riding the tube.  Best part was as we were getting whipped outside the wake, my handle broke and I went flying over the top of Mike, hitting him in the head and knocking us both off. 

Here's another view of the incident I described above.  Maria's commentary on the video adds a nice touch, but it's not as funny as it was for Mike and I who lived it.

Captain Brad relaxing on the boat.  Of course on this boat, he was demoted to first mate.

Captain Brad on his Knee board. He kept it old school as no one else rode a knee board.  He also brought a long a single ski that about 5 minutes of use on it.  I think he pulled it down from his trophy room to show off all that he could do.  Of course as soon as it hit the water Brad the excuses lined up on why he couldn't ride it.

Here I am on the tube, waiting for Mike to join.  

Brad driving the speed boat

Steve highlighting the lighter side of life.  He was a lot of fun, until he made the claim that his wife's salsa was better than Maria's.  Now he's blacklisted.  

Brad and I chilling on the top of the boat.  Great place to watch the stars and meteor shower at night.

Brad and Natalie, we had a blast and thanks again.  It was great riding in your boat, watching son Wakeboard and spending the weekend partying with you.  

As Mickey Rourke once said "Too All My Friends..." I had a great time with you and will cherish these memories forever.  So many fun moments and little things that are not caught in the pictures but all add up to a memorable trip.  I've never done a house boat trip before, but I can't wait to do another one.  I'll definitely be more prepared, by bringing even less stuff next time.  Hope everyone who joined me had as good of a time as I did.