Hello, Lake Cumberland!

It's been a while since we woke up super early and were actually excited to be awake before the sun. We had a very important destination to reach today, so it was not only totally warranted, but highly anticipated!

We loaded up, climbed in, and took off..... TO CUMBERLAND! :D

loaded up and car ride crazy! yeeeeshhh haha 

We rolled into the parking lot at the bottom of the switchback hill, where it wasn't long before Mike and Esther pulled up next to us. The four of us got a head start on dropping in and drifting over to the main office to get introduced to the houseboat on which we'll be spending the next three and a half days!

hello houseboat! 

What a fun little hideaway! I mean, it's basically a double wide on pontoons, but there's a hot tub and a waterslide on the top deck, so... yeah..

seven year old cori is extremely excited about this... 

We just started getting settled in when Kenny and Taryn appeared up on the bank, and before long, they'd loaded their boat and weekend gear into the houseboat as well.

snack corner assembly.. haha

on board with this guy! ♥  

We each staked claim to cubbies for sleeping, setting one aside for Tawny and Ryan. The Cumberland staff eventually came to escort us out of the cove into the open waters.

our escort with mike & "captain kenny" 

We cruised for about 20 minutes before we found a spot to anchor up to a shore and took advantage of the time to unwind and settle in..

here we go, cumberland! :) 

mike atop the houseboat
rob's boat on the left, kenny's on the right

We've all been driving all day, so as the sun starts setting, we'll be unwinding and probably calling it an early night. Tawny and Ryan will be here somewhere around midnight-1am tonight, but with any luck, some of us will be asleep by then ;). 

For now, we're here in Cumberland, and ready to go! 

Seeeee ya tomorrow! 

xo | cmd

I Play Sand Rainyball

So, it rained a lot today. Like.... all day. Awesome, right?
No... not really...

right before the lightning... 

The good news, we walked away tonight with our championship Tshirts from the last session, where we somehow managed to pull away with both league champion and tournament champion status. I could've done without the rain & lightning, but I'm not complaining - it was still a blast.

woop woop! 

Let's all say a quick prayer that the rain will not be here when we wake up tomorrow... wouldn't that be nice? ;)

Maybe. We'll see.
G'Nite!

xo | cmd

USAvNGA

Guys.... World Cup action is starting. I don't know if that means much to a lot of you, but I'm predicting a couple of things for this year's Women's WC: 

1. The USA will WIN! Why? Because they're freakin' AWESOME, and because, along with my American brethren and sistren (whatever), #IBELIEVE!

2. Hope Solo will get GC of the campaign

3. Becky and I will scream a lot, and many people will see a side of us that they A) didn't know existed, or B) fear, every time WWC years come around. 

4. We'll keep the cards to a minimum, and not do anything excruciatingly stupid.

5. We'll WIN, because well... #USWNT! 

8pm was slow to come around... but it did, finally, and found Becky, Mike, Rob, Brandon and I in what I'm sure just became our assigned seats for the rest of the game viewings we'll be hosting. 

here we go! 

We needed to win the group, so we can get on with it and get into elimination play. Well...

that happened.. 

... and then ABBY WAMBACH happened, and sealed the deal! 

Looks like we're on the Sweet 16, and I can't wait to see who we've got! #IBELIEVE! 

World Cup fever, folks.. I've got it... 

xo | cmd

Pew Pew Pew!

I have a [very few] select words for you, Monday...

Uh-huh. Time for Tuesday. 

See ya then :). 

xo | cmd 

Simple Sunday

Today was a great day. It was simple, and it was great. 

I need a reminder every so often to just be still.. and live. simply.

Tomorrow we're back to the grind.
Let's do it :) Namaste.

xo | cmd

#BoatProblems

It was so beautiful out today.

I kickstarted the gorgeous day by sleeping in until 11am. I have no clue how that happened, but I woke up to Rob nudging my foot at the end of the bed, with a plateful of breakfast in hand.

on the water! :) 

Yeah that's right, my man made me breakfast in bed.
I know for a fact that I don't deserve this guy. He is seriously.. the best.

It was a split decision after that to head to the water, but that's about how it happens half the time anyway. We loaded up and took off in the direction of Ripley, to meet up with Reuben and his two boys for the day.

Ripley is well past the passages of water that freak us all out here in the good old Ohio River. It's a bit of a haul out there, but as always, once you get in the water, the commute melts away and it all becomes worth it!

Jessica decided to join the fun, so she took off to meet us, while we rendezvoused for a bit with Reuben. Soon enough, we took the short cruise back to our drop in to load Jessica, and then it was back up river to the sandbar!

I don't give enough credit to the guy who brought us out here, and for all the work he does before and after these trips, along with everything else he does that we don't recognize him for as often as we should..

love this crazy fool ♥  

Reuben and his boys visit this area frequently, so they're familiar with the layout. The boys took Jessica and I to the other side of the sandbar, where there was a rope swing that swooped out over the bank and into the river. Interested? Well, DUH..

weeee! 

jessica taking a go at it, too 

We eventually trekked back through the brush of the sandbar to the bank where Rob and Reuben were in no rush to wind down. The lot of us hung out a little while longer, until the sun began to phase into that golden, pre-setting shade. Reuben and his sons took off, and we weren't far behind. It was a cruise back to where we'd started, so Jessica and I took turns to give Rob a bit of a break.

girls will be girls.. 

All was going just fine until a small sputter interrupted the otherwise smooth ride, and then a bigger sputter. Rob took over at that point, but with no luck of righting the noises. In an instant, the power stopped all together, and we were left afloat with no engine turnover in the middle of the river.

That is not where you want to be.
There was a lot of barge activity today, and my initial fear was that we'd wind up in the path of a load and be unable to move. After much effort, time and fruitless brainstorming on our end, we managed to flag down a couple on a jetski, who were kind enough to assist us with some fuel..

thank. you!!

As it turned out, the kid working the pump at the dock didn't put the gas cap back on correctly when we fueled up. It was an error that we should've caught, but noticed it only after it was too late - the point after which I'm sure gas had been coming out and water had been going in - the gas tank [aka, not.... good.. at all...].

The fueling didn't work, but our second saving grace was a family on a houseboat that ended up tying off with us and towing us in to the dock. Rob hopped off to go and get his truck, while Jess and I held down the fort. I must say we did a good job.. haha

 and jessica with the dismount! haha

Okay, so here's the deal - it's been a LONG day, and Rob is officially very much through with all of tonight's debacle. I would expect the next few days to hold some long hours of tinkering, but I have zero doubt that he'll have it diagnosed, fixed and reassembled before the middle of the week. That's just how he rolls...

Womp womp. That's the life of having big toys like boats, bikes and trucks... *sigh.

We'll deal with this later. For now, this is how we'll go ahead and remember today - from the fun side..

G'Nite...

xo | cmd 

The Next Step | USAvSWE!!

A couple days ago, I wasn't entirely sure that Friday would ever get here... yet, at the same time I felt like it was Friday for about 3 days in a row. Weird how that works.

At any rate, Friday showed up and I was ready to see it. The sun was out all day, the daily flow went as planned [well, for the most part, which... if we're even 51% to 49%, it's considered a win sometimes.. haha], and to top it off, there was an actual lunch hour today!

I finally purchased the book 'Phenomenal' today, and although I'm less than 30 pages in, I would recommend this to any and all of you! Elisa and I gathered ourselves together for what we're expecting to be the last Friday dual outing for at least a little while, tethered our hammocks up in Ault Park, and retreated into our own little moments of paradise for about 40 minutes.

this was perfect ♥

There's been so much going on recently, just as it pertains to work alone. We've been on hyperdrive for the past few weeks, so the degree to which this was needed today was grossly understated, at best.

hammocks. books. birds. sunshine. fresh air. barefeet. 

I'm not built to stay indoors all the time.. I'm really not. I mean, who is, I suppose?
There is so much change happening right now on the "workfront." Paul, our new franchisee, sets foot in the office on Monday.. at that point, he'll take full rein of the helm here and become the leadership element of which we've been barren for quite some time now. It is an overhaul on the horizon, and while I am welcoming it with perhaps aggressively beckoning arms, it is still change. It is new, it is foreign, and it is a little scary. It is all good change, but there is always some measure of the unknown that nestles itself into whatever resolve we've already made.. and it's weirdly unraveling.

And then, I saw this as we were closing our lunch break and leaving the park:

.. & the first thing that came to mind was,

"IS GOING TO BE OKAY." 

Because honestly, it IS! I'm that notorious trip-&-free-faller, whereas most people are in either the camp of just leaping into something OR taking it one cautious and analytical step at a time. I run straight down the middle and usually end up faceplanting at the end, so I couldn't help but give that you-got-me eyeroll to the universe when I literally almost stumbled up these steps, and saw the pink chalk letters that were any and everything except random today.

I needed to absorb that although these changes start on Monday, it's cool.. 'cuz it's naturally THE. NEXT. STEP.

And it's [not] gonna be [just] okay.
It's gonna be AWESOME.
Deal? Deal.

The work day closed its doors, and on its heels opened the evening doors of WATCHING THIS:

^^ There were so. many. choices. for which one of those promo posters I would put on here, so please be proud of me for selecting only two. Haha.

USAvSWE! 

Disappointingly [< I was back and forth on whether or not that was a word; it is, FYI], while the game was a nail-biter, it ended after 3 minutes of added stoppage time, it still ended at a tied score of 0-0.

We have Megan Klingenberg to thank for that.

saving the game... literally.

The score was still at 0's by halftime, and although we had much hope for the second half, well... at least it wasn't a loss. 

halftime.... 

tied up: usa v swe | 06.12.15

Meh. It's obviously not ideal, but we'll take it. 

It's finally the weekend, and that's an added bonus! Enjoy it, fellow blogbots! 

xo | cmd