Pedal Boat

If you're a bright bunny (and let's face it, if you're reading this blog you have to be, because I don't attract knuckledraggers), you will have noticed the paddlepedal boat resting on the front of Dad's pontooooon in my last post.We finally picked it up from the friends who were selling it to us. Or, Dad did. He's so awesome.

As soon as the boat appeared, the kids HAD to go out for a paddle. And the captain, being the fun-loving safety-minded dad that he is said "NO!" because it was pretty windy and  the lake was a bit rough.  And it was.

This, in turn, started the "Can we go now?", "I want to go too!", "Why can't we go out in the boat?", "The lake isn't that bad, Dad.", "Just for a minute?" and about 87 other rapid-fire demands/inquiries/complaints.

"What's the worst that could happen?" I ask. "They'll capsize and get wet."
"No." Says the captain. "They'll drift out into the lake and I'll have to go after them."
"Drift!?!?" I respond. "They'll be tied to shore!"
"Ohhhh!" says the captain, warming to the idea, clearly not having thought of tying them up. I am so modest brilliant. What would you do without me!?

To put an end to the badgering, I finally convinced the captain to let them go out, provided they had their lifejackets on and were tethered to shore. The wind would blow them back to land, not out to sea, and if they got into a real mess, we could just haul them back with the rope.

And here are the clearly miserable kids out in their new boat, heading for West Grape Island.

They only pedaled around for about 15 minutes before deciding the lake was too rough, but at least we didn't have to listen to anymore of the whingeing.