Sailing!

For the 4^th of July weekend, Elijah went for his first sailboat ride, on Grandma Amanda's boat! We headed up on Saturday morning, hitting horrendous traffic on the way to Canada (the boat is in Sarnia, just on the other side of the BlueWater Bridge at Port Huron). We finally made it though, and Grandma met us with Elijah's "boat coat" - his life jacket. We weren't sure how he was going to react to being in the marina or on the boat, so we were a little protective at first.

Well, it turns out that 1.) Sailboats are basically childproof for kids Eli's age and 2.) Eli's Viking heritage on Jon's side and Dutch heritage on the other basically ensured that Elijah loves being on boats! He took right to it, and found his sea legs quickly.

Elijah was the perfect age for a stay on the boat, which was a nice surprise. The benches in the cockpit are too high for Eli to climb on to yet, so when the drop boards preventing him from accessing the ladder to the cabin were in Elijah could have free reign to crawl and walk around the cockpit and explore. Which he loved! And everything below deck in a sailboat is constructed so it does not easily open, for times when the boat is heeled over or in rough weather - which meant that the sailboat was baby-proofed already and Eli couldn't get in to anything he shouldn't! Eli just loved exploring and checking everything out.

When we actually went sailing Eli had to have on his lifejacket, which he wasn't that pleased about - mostly because it was quite hot. Still, he handled it all in stride and didn't really complain. All in all we spent three days and two nights on the boat, and loved every minute of it! As a bonus, Jon's Aunt Cheryl and cousin Leah were up for two days, and we got to spend some nice family time with them as well. Based on this weekend, I predict more fun times sailing in Eli's future!