Ropelato Family: Yuba Lake with My Family

Our annual Peterson Family Vacation this year was at Yuba Lake (we didn't go to Bear Lake as we have in the past). We were gone from Tuesday after work until Saturday (July 13th-17th). All of my siblings and their families were at Yuba Lake for about 15 hours (Dave, Tera and Ella weren't able to come until Friday night)!!! It has been awhile since EVERYONE was together! We had an adventure filled trip! I made Scott's life a little more difficult on two occasions on Wednesday morning (within about an hour of each other--totally unintentional) and we almost let Brittney drift away all by herself on a little floatie but other than that the rest of the trip was great! We had 5 campsites reserved to accommodate all 42 of us (18 adults and 24 children).

We arrived around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday night and set up our campsite. On Wednesday morning, we went and put the wave runners in the water and to set up canopies on the burr infested beach which was close to our campsites (a five minute walk or so back to camp). I rode one of the wave runners over to the beach and left Scott at the truck so he could pump up the tubes, the raft, the floaties and the water trampoline. I was to come back and check to see if he was done a little while later so we could tow all the "stuff" he had loaded on top of the water trampoline over to the beach. I went over a little later than he had anticipated. Later, Scott walked back to the truck to bring the tubes over and he was walking along the shoreline dragging the tubes in the water. Mallory and I saw him from the wave runner and we went to pick him up and give him a ride. Well, I didn't gun it fast enough and we got a rock stuck in the wave runner--NOT GOOD! Scott had to walk and get some tools and when he got back, I had to hold the wave runner on its side (full of gas--it was soooo heavy) while he tried to get the rock out. After what seemed like an eternity, we decided to load the wave runner on the trailer again and take it back to camp to work on it. Thankfully, after a lot of silent prayers Scott was FINALLY able to jam a rod into the wave runner and break the rock up and get it unstuck from the propeller. What I thought was a good deed turned into being another HUGE headache for Scott!!! The rest of the day Wednesday turned out to be nice and hot!!

On Thursday, we went to the beach again for the majority of the day. We decided to leave our floaties, chairs and life jackets in a huge pile inside our raft under the canopies for the night so we didn't have to set up again tomorrow (or drag everything over to the beach again). We beached the wave runners and thankfully everything was undisturbed in the morning. The kids had a blast playing in the water, jumping on the trampoline, riding the tubes and going for rides on the wave runners. Hayley, Kaitlin and Brittney were playing on the floaties together today. Brittney was sitting in one of the chair-like floaties we have and she was holding onto the other one. Kaitlin and Hayley were on and off them too. Well, Hayley and Kaitlin both decided they didn't want to play on them anymore and they let go. All of a sudden, I heard Hayley screaming hysterically that Brittney was floating away. I was sitting under the canopy about 30 feet from the water and Brittney was about 10 feet from the shore. As I ran to the water, I scooped up my life jacket and jumped onto this round tube we had to go swim after Brittney (Scott was out on one of the wave runners and someone else was on the other). I tried laying on the tube and trying to paddle with my arms to Brittney (the tube I was on was just big enough that my feet couldn't go in the water to help me kick). It seemed the more ground I got, the more she got. Brittney was sitting in the floatie and hanging on to the other floatie--there was no way she was going to let go. Anyway, my brother-in-law Trent ran to his kayack when I took off from the beach and he paddled out and he reached Brittney first. She had made it all the way out to the buoys--which was about 50+ yards from the shore--a LONG way out!! While all this was going on, my nephew Colten was out with our raft. He was hanging onto the outside of the raft and was drifting to the buoys too. He couldn't pull himself back into the raft so he could row back to shore. So, Trent got Brittney first and put her onto the kayak with him and then he got the floaties inside the raft with Colten. He pulled the raft and Colten over to me and I helped Colten get back into the raft. I held onto the side of the raft and Trent grabbed my tow rope to pull me and my tube back to shore. Just as we all get situated and Trent starts to take us back to shore, Scott comes back from his ride on the wave runner and he ends up pulling Colten and I back in. It was quite the adventure!!! I wouldn't want to do it again! I am so grateful I made Brittney (and Mallory and Hayley) wear their life jackets whenever they were in the water. Brittney had on her life jacket and she was so calm sitting there on her floatie. Her biggest concern was making sure the other floatie she was holding onto didn't float away!! What a day!!

Friday was really uneventful until the last 2 hours on the beach. A small group of us adults were sitting under the canopies reading, resting and/or talking. All of a sudden, a small tornado thing hit the beach right in front of us and then it blew right through our canopies. We were all jumping up to grab something that was blowing away and then Jared and John's canopies just tumbled. I was running after a little boogie board that was blowing away and I pulled my sunglasses down onto the bridge of my nose to keep the sand out of my eyes and one of the legs of the canopy smacked me across my cheek and hit the side of my glasses. I am really glad I pulled my glasses down that split second before the canopy hit me!! It hurt and I luckily didn't get a big bruise across my face!! Just a little crazy!!

Friday night, it took several hours for Scott and I to get all the water toys loaded and put away! My poor little family didn't eat dinner until 9 p.m.! Oh well, we had a lot of fun.

It was kind of funny that 5 families from our ward and neighborhood (and our girls friends and even their babysitters) were at Yuba Lake too--they were in the campsites that bordered ours. It was fun to see them all over!!

While we were at Yuba, we had several activities for the kids to do. They made Froot Loop necklaces, made sock puppets, made sun catchers and painted wooden flowers. Mallory, Hayley and Brittney had tons of fun playing with their cousins and staying up late!! We are glad we brought our game "Charades for Kids" so we could all play that together too! The kids loved it!!

Mallory riding the tube

Hayley (sitting on the tube I tried to rescue Brittney on)

Kaitlin and Hayley

Brittney

Brittney playing in the sand and burrs (there were burrs everywhere!!!!)

Mallory heading out on the tube

Mallory waiting for a tow

Hayley going for a little ride on the tube (in the no wake zone--she didn't want to go all the way out on the lake)

Brittney on the raft and Scott on the floatie (the same floatie Brittney was sitting in for her little adventure--she was hanging onto another chair floatie just like it)