Sailing Away

Well, yesterday was an adventure-filled day, with a side of emotion. And of course, I forgot to bring my camera. So, no pictures today. (Except these 2 of Eloise taken yesterday, before I forgot my camera.)

Holding hands with her piggy friend.

Smiling in her sleep. How cute is that?

Speaking of Eloise, she just spit up majorly again, requiring a change of outfit. She did this on Wednesday when I was out shopping with my mom, and of course I had forgotten a change of clothes. (I usually have one in my bag!) So we bought her a new outfit at Costco, and then she spit up all over that one. What are you gonna do?

Anyway, back to yesterday's activities. For my brother-in-law Gabe's birthday, we decided to take our recently purchased sailboat out on Utah Lake. We all chipped in and bought this boat for a really good deal from a guy who was pretty much just wanting to get rid of it, and we wanted to try it out. We got out to the lake, got the boat in, and started to row away from the docks. (Yes, rowing. This boat does not have a motor.) We headed for the middle of the lake where we could take the sail up.

Well, there were 3 mismatched oars. 2 of them seemed like they were child's oars, because they did absolutely nothing. We almost made it out, when the wind seriously picked up and started sending us way off course. The wind, far from letting up, got worse over the next half hour or so. We tried to fight it, but we were just forced farther backward. We didn't want to hit anything, and finally made it back to the private docks. We parked it there while we tried to figure out how best to do this. Then we noticed that the boat was pretty noticeably filling with water and starting to sink.

We went to go look for a bail, as well as someone to tow us out. The whole situation looked pretty grim. Micah brought a huge trash can to bail out some water. Then we caught a lucky break. Micah's cousin Tony happened to be there so go out on his own boat, and towed ours out. It was so sad drifting along, half of it almost under water. We put it back on the trailer, and then realized something--it wasn't a leak. Most recent boats have a one way valve to let water out, but not let it in. Ours had drainage holes that needed to be plugged up while in the water, and then they can be unplugged to let water out once ashore. We felt pretty silly at that point. I'm just glad we didn't make it out to middle of the lake, because sinking out there would have been more stressful.

Second event yesterday was my sister Elna's graduation. I still think of her like this:

Or like this...

 But now she is all grown up! Doing amazing in ballroom competitions all year...

...going on dates to fancy dances...

And now she is all graduated! She's ready to take on the world, and I could not be prouder of her.

Love you Elna!