July has been HOT! Every day in the mid- to high-90s with lots of humidity. With pools closed because of COVID we've had to think outside the box and find other ways to get wet and beat the heat.
You can
rent boats at a lake near where the Caldwells live. The one we rented was the
double-decker party boat. It was tons of fun! We had a half day rental for 4 hours and that was definitely long enough! It wore all of us out!!
So how do you drive this thing???
(Now Owen claims he can walk on water)
Willow enjoyed a turn driving the boat on the way back in!
A local park has tube rentals down a 1-mile stretch of the river. They shuttle you to the drop in and pick you up at the other end. It's a full day rental so we were able to do one run, go home for lunch, then enjoyed a second run. If we didn't have VBS we could've fit in one more! There were 4 rapids on the float. 3 of them were
class 1 (aka nothing really) and
the other was class 2 (aka fun but won't knock you out of your tube). It was
tough for Owen to reach the water with his hands or feet to steer himself much so he ended up wedged against a rock with the current too strong to have a chance to unwedge himself. After we got him free, Chris held onto his tube with his feet. When we were home for lunch we grabbed bungee cords and we all attached ourselves together for our 2nd float which was nice and less stressful for him.
We met Kim and the kids back at the lake by their house. There's a "beach" area that we enjoyed for a couple hours then had a picnic lunch.
We bought kayaks last spring but hadn't had a chance to take them out yet....until now!! We headed to a local lake and enjoyed paddling around for an hour, had a picnic lunch, then enjoyed swimming a bit. We'll definitely be going back!
The kids enjoyed hopping out of the kayaks to float for a bit and cool off. We had them try it near the shore so if they couldn't climb back in the kayaks on their own, we'd be close enough to somewhere they could step back in. Lesson learned: they can't climb back in.
Lovin' the lake life!
A friend told us about a stretch of the river near our house that is dammed so you can paddle down and back since it's not a strong current. I was a bit nervous about bringing the kids to try it out, so Chris and I went while Nana and Grandpa had the kids. It passed the test so we'll have to try it out with the kids soon!
It was shocking how much trash was caught in the branches along the river! Next time we'll bring a trash bag!
In other "water fun," Willow (and usually Owen) can not resist
playing in the rain when it's warm!
The Caldwells got an above ground pool (and new camper!!) so we ventured out to their house for the day to check them out!
Cooling off inside:
Kim heard about Pipestem State Park in West Virginia through a friend. They have inflatable obstacles on a lake AND a splash park for kids. We couldn't resist giving it a try and were glad both dads were able to take the day off work to join us!
They had the splash pad to themselves for most of the morning!
The anticipation of the
bucket dump!
The lake with obstacles was awesome!!
The obstacles were harder to get on than we'd thought!
Check out the kids
here and
here.
It was a fun day!
Another fun way to cool off in the heat is...ice cream! We heard about a food truck that parks at a local gas station on the weekends. It has amazing ice cream sandwiches!!
