Resolutions Suck

If you recall, just a few short weeks ago, I resolved to become a more timely blogger. And also to win the lottery. I have been successful at neither of these things.

But I have added another post about our Denver trip here.

I guess this is as good a time as any to put in a blog post about our most recent boating outing. I'd put it in chronological order if I had any recollection of which weekend this was. Maybe resolutions don't suck, maybe I just suck at resolutions!

Alternate Blog Title: Wakeboarding!

It is surprisingly difficult to find people who want to go to the lake with us. You'd think that people would want to escape the heat for a bit and cool off at the lake. However, it seems that most people are too busy to spend a day away. Or maybe people don't really like me enough to commit to being out on the lake with no means of getting away from me. Or, in one friend's case, minor surgery occurs the Friday before every lake trip. Whatever the reason, it seems that Pat and I have not been boating much this summer due to lack on interest of our friends. But one weekend, I talked Christy into going with us. Maybe her agreement was based on the bribe that I'd let her bring one of her kids.

Miranda was a fabulous flag girl while I wakeboarded.

And Miranda was a very good sport while trying to learn to wakeboard. She did everything I told her to do and she was very persistent in trying again and again. She eventually made it up a few times. Yay, Miranda.
Christy was hesitant to try it because she was afraid she wouldn't get up. Yeah, right. Christy can do everything. Up on the first try:
We stopped for a little while to play on this "beach". This is as beachy as it gets in Arizona.
Me and Pat and our old, old boat:
We ended up cutting the day short because the sky all of a sudden looked like this:

As we were leaving the lake, we could see the huge amounts of rain falling over Bartlett and past Fountain Hills. And in Phoenix? Sunny and clear. Weird.

Remember the Alamo

I wish I could explain the above picture, but I can't...other than to say that last weekend we went camping at Lake Alamo. We wanted to go to a lake so we could take out Pat's boat and also try kayaking again. Here is our campsite:Pat and I had a little "discussion" a few weeks ago about 3 dogs being too many to take camping. I, of course, thought this was ridiculous. The solution was for the dogs to have a tent of their own (the blue one above). This worked great until the wind snapped the poor little tent poles clean in half on Sunday afternoon. That night, the pups had to sleep in their crates. :(

On Saturday morning half of us went out in the boat and half us went out in the kayaks. I was on Team Kayak.
I don't remember it being quite as much work last time. My feelings on kayaking have gone from hatred to love and now they are resting in the fair to middlin' range.There are wild donkeys at Lake Alamo. Apparently when the mining boom ended, the miners left their donkeys behind and now there are packs of them roaming around. I heard them late at night and early in the morning "eee aww"ing away, but I only saw this one:
The wakeboarding season was officially opened! Woo hoo! Saturday afternoon:
The water was really, really choppy. We didn't stay out long. On Sunday morning we went out again. This time the water was smooth as glass!! It was AWESOME:Even though the water was perfect, I didn't try any tricks because I'm still gun-shy from my Maven Session humiliation. I'm terrified of getting hurt. I did land a tiny little jump off the heel-side wake, so I'll be proud of that. David was awesome - he learned how to go over both wakes and back to the middle and hardly fell down at all. By the end of his runs, he was well on his way to becoming pro.

Craig is from Texas, so he has inherent rope throwing skills:

The best part about camping is toasting marshmallows. Mmmmm, marshmallows. I could (and pretty much did) eat the whole bag. Here is a picture of me, apparently pouting because I had to share the skewers with Iren:
One of my favorite parts of the trip was taking the dogs down to the lake. It was a bit of a hike from campground to lake:

Frankie and Georgie hate the pool but like the ocean, so I was interested to see how they would feel about a lake. Georgie started swimming immediately. It was so cute.Frankie swam a little, but mostly just wanted to drink the water.
Mo waded into the water after some hesitation, and she swam a little bit when I led her out to where it was too deep for her to touch, but she wasn't so thrilled about that.

David taught me to play Go and I taught him to play Backgammon. He was much more successful at learning my game than I was at his. I think I had a complete losing streak all day long.Well, them's the highlights of the trip! It was fun and hot and tiring and I ate way more than I exercised, but a good time was had by all.

Oh, wait...Craig wanted me to document that these words came out of my mouth: "I'm candied out." Documented.

Maven Session = Humiliation Session

I signed up for the Maven Sessions for an opportunity to take a wakeboarding class from a professional wakeboarder. I was very optimistic that with a little coaching, a real boat and professional gear, this could be me:

Yeah, that wasn't me. This was me:



I was very close to this being me:
The whole experience was in turns annoying, irritating, depressing and humiliating. First it was annoying because the pro-wakeboarders were late. The event was supposed to start at 9:00 and they didn't even arrive to set up until 9:15. Then it got irritating. Of the 11 girls there to learn to ride, there were 3 children, 1 mom and 7 of us in my approximate age range. Who did I get to ride with? You guessed it - the 3 children and the mom, while my 6 potential wakeboarding friends went in the other boat. Then it got depressing as the first rider in my boat - a 10 year old girl - let us know that she was there to try to land {insert name of a trick I've never heard of here} for her next competition. Yep, she could jump wake to wake and do ollie-180's and more shit than I can name. Then when it was finally my turn, it got humiliating. I sucked thoroughly and showed a prodigious talent for being utterly uncoachable. My last attempt knocked the wind out of me, knocked my feet out of my bindings and snapped my ponytail holder clean off. I landed face down in the water and my fear of drowning caused a minor panic attack. Humiliating, I tell you.

It's so depressing to want something so bad and then to underachieve so completely.

The Down Side of Wakeboarding

OW! These muscles are so sore I can barely move:

I Love Wakeboarding!

Pat and I spent the day at Bartlett Lake today with our friends Laura and Brad. This was the first time we've been out on the boat this season. I was reminded again how much I love wakeboarding. Our boat doesn't have a tower, so we wakeboard from the waterski hitch. We are very ghetto. I thought about using my gift from George and Uncle Sam towards installing a tower on the boat, but decided that putting the money towards our trip to Brazil would be a smarter decision. When our finances start to turn towards a surplus, Pat and I can think about getting a new boat. In the meantime I plan on enjoying the lake as often as I can with what we've got. Our crappy boat runs and it goes fast enough to pull us, so that is good enough for now.

And before I can think about towers and new boats, the first thing I really need to do is get over my fear of getting hurt and try some new things. My goal is to learn to switch my feet. I normally ride with my right foot forward. Towards the end of last season I tried to switch to left foot forward, but I wasn't paying attention to keeping the top of my board out of the water when switching, so the tip went under and I smacked face first into the water so hard that I was convinced I'd have two black eyes and a concussion. Luckily, I was not injured but I did end up with a severe aversion to trying it again.

I did manage to pull off a new trick today. I don't know what it's called (I really need to start hanging out with wakeboarding people who can teach me these things), but I balanced my board on top of the wake for a few seconds before crossing over. It was way easier than I thought it would be. The wake kind of scares me (Are you seeing a theme here?), so this was a major accomplishment.

I think part of what I like about wakeboarding is the fact that it scares me out of my wits. And even though it scares me, I'm still out there doing it. Every second I'm still standing is a huge thrill for me. Most of the time I'm out there, I'm screaming or holding my breath convinced I'm going to die. I love it!

Maven Sessions

Come on girls! Maven Sessions are coming to Phoenix! If you want to learn to wakeboard or learn to be a better wakeboarder, this is for you. I have registered for the clinic on Monday, August 25th in the afternoon. Who's joining me? Register NOW because they only take 6 people in each time slot. (Edited to add: If you want to know how this went, read all about it HERE)

From their website:

Maven Session Event Details

The Maven Sessions are a nation-wide tour of wake sports clinics for women and girls taught by the Maven Pro athletes. We invite all ages and levels to join us! This will be the 3rd year of the tour and it keeps getting better! Last year’s tour we met over 800 ladies ranging from ages of 4 yrs old to 61 yrs old. We taught a few girls their first inverts and got hundreds of beginners up on a wakeboard for their very first time. Our goals in the Maven Sessions are to grow your confidence on the water, teach you proper body position to help you progress, educate you on board shape and design, and to help you network with other local girls who love to ride.

I am very optimistic that this is going to be me very soon:


Event Recap HERE