Just as I predicted we didn't have any internet service out on the lake. We didn't have any cell service either. We got to the Antelope Point Marina around 9:30. It took us awhile to get out on the lake because there are a million instructions they need to give you before they let you take the houseboat out. We also rented a speed boat so that once we found a place to dock we wouldn't have to drive the houseboat until we returned it on the 5th. Brad and Nathan left us in the middle of the lake to scout out a nice place with the speed boat. When they got back one of our two engines wouldn't start. We called the marina and they said they would send out a mechanic to take a look at it. We thought we gave them our correct location, but they never did find us. We also never found the perfect spot that Brad and Nathan had found for us to dock. They went out again, but the place they found had too many rocks and not enough sand for us to dig our anchors into. So Brad went out to search on his own. The next place he found was too hard to get the boat into, so off we went again. By this time the sun was starting to go down and we needed to find something asap. The third spot was perfect and we got the boat anchored before the sun finally disappeared. We cooked dinner and after the kids went to bed the adults went up to the top deck to the hot tub. The next day was the 4th of July. We took the speed boat out on the lake. Our only destination was Rainbow Bridge, which you can only get to by boat. Matthew has a love/hate relationship with speed boats. He wants to like them, but when we go too fast he gets freaked out. He sat in my lap the whole time because it's the only place he felt safe. After we saw Rainbow Bridge we found a quiet cove to let the kids swim. The most Matthew would do is put his feet in, but Jack, Naomi and Hana had fun jumping off the boat into the water. They even had a contest to see who could do the coolest jump. Our houseboat had a water slide on it, so the kids really wanted to get back to the boat so they could go down it. When we got back we ate lunch, then had to reposition the houseboat so the slide was over deeper water. We thought the kids would go down the slide once and be done with it, but they couldn't get enough. Matthew only went down once and he would only go down it if he could sit in Brad's lap. I'm not a big fan of swimming in lakes but I eventually got in. We all had on life jackets, because we had no idea how deep the lake was. After the lake, we warmed up in the hot tub. Then we ate dinner and watched the fireworks on TV. We weren't close enough to the fireworks they were shooting off over the lake, so we had to settle for watching the fireworks in Boston.
Around 3:30 in the morning on the 5th, Brad noticed that the houseboat was moving around a lot, because the ropes weren't tight enough. Brad, Nathan and Miho (I slept through the whole thing) got the boat retied up. That was only the beginning of our problems. When Brad tried to start the boat so we could head back to the marina, it wouldn't start. We had to call the marina and they sent out a crew to fix the boat. It took about an hour and a half for them to reach us. One person started towing our boat while the mechanic tried to figure out what was wrong. He finally determined that both starters were out on the engines. He got one engine up and running again so we could drive the boat back the marina. I don't think we will be going houseboating again anytime soon. It was a lot of fun, but also a big headache at the same time. When we finally got off the houseboat we stopped in Paige to grab lunch/dinner and then hit the road for our four hour drive to Las Vegas. We got into town around 9pm. We were staying at the Encore and the Effrons were staying at the Marriott Vacation Club, so we didn't see each other the rest of the night. We took the boys to see the volcano at the Mirage and then walked to Ghiradelli to get ice cream. Jack said that Vegas was awesome because Ghiradelli is open until 1am.
We are so lucky to have great relatives to go on vacation with. Jack, Matthew, Naomi and Hana all get along great together and have so much fun whenever they are with each other. I'm glad they didn't go to Japan this summer, so that they could go on our houseboating adventure with us.
