Short trip ~ Big Bear Lake, Part 1 (July 26/27)

We decided to just get out of the house and go on a little road trip to Big Bear Lake.   It's only about 2.5 hours away so not too bad of a drive at all... considering we used to drive over 10 hours to Gilbert, AZ where we used to have a house there.

Graham and Charlie never miss a beat in these road trips.  We are packed with chips and DVDs.  It felt like there was enough for a 2 week trip when we are only away for 4 days and 3 nights.  Ha ha!

Feels good to be out again!

What is with this traffic?!?

Okay, that was just a delay because of road work.  Look at all the traffic leaving Big Bear on a Sunday afternoon:

This is a nice change of scenery since who knows when: 

I really can't remember our last road trip.  OMG, I just looked it up - it was August of last year to Las Vegas to meet up with our good friends who flew in from London.  Yikes!

Here's our cabin for the next few days!

The cabin could have been cozier if it was just a bit cleaner.  The kitchen and sheets were thankfully clean so I suppose it could have been worse?!? Graham and Charlie are excited about the bunk bed:

... although Charlie didn't like Graham being on the top bunk.  He said the bunk squeaked and he was worried that Graham and the rest of the top bunk would fall on him.  Anyway, they are quick in getting comfy on the master bed and watching their channel:

I almost miss just having regular TV, where you just watch what is available in the area.  Now with all these on-demand/streaming TV, you can watch any of your shows anywhere in the world. It's almost good and bad because you can miss so much of just the local stuff, even if there isn't much of it.

Anyway... big day tomorrow, we are going fishing!  And with the power of technology, fast-forward to the next day - Graham and Charlie are super excited!

We were here at Big Bear Lake last year in April, where we were actually hoping to catch the last bit of snow -  but ended up on the lake instead.  Coincidentally we had the boy's fishing rods in the car so we went on an impromptu fishing trip. 

But this time, we came prepared. Graham is not wasting any time while Bobby gets the orientation on how to drive the boat:

And we're off!  We ended up with a "luxury" pontoon because the regular ones were sold out.  These boats come with a radio.  Fancy!

And this year, we talked about getting some real bait:

Oh boy... I'm just glad I brought some gloves!

I don't think Charlie was too enthusiastic about it either about these "night crawlers", although it was actually his idea on this worms.  They were MASSIVE!

After a few practice swings, we are ready to fish!  Charlie is using his "fishing stance" here to stay steady on the boat:

I'm glad he got the hang of casting pretty quickly:

Although we did lose both bobbers.  Oops!

Graham is like a pro here casting his line:

He actually didn't want to use any of the real worms.  He had a fake bait and was happy with that. And when he wasn't fishing, he was happy just looking out into lake :-)

Once we found another spot to fish, Graham and Charlie switched spots.  Graham is looking so relaxed.  Ha ha!

The boys both took turns to co-pilot.  It's a good thing it wasn't too busy on the lake:

It would be so nice to own a boat and live by a lake.  Both boys really enjoyed this:

Thumbs up from Charlie!

That's before he got tired.  Ha ha!  He didn't like the bumps too much:

And Graham is busy playing with his "virtual pet", the Tamagotchi.  

Food always makes Charlie feel better:

I decided to take my turn with the fishing rod and ended up with a couple of really funny moments.  When I was casting my line out, my worm broke off the hook and flew further than my line.  LOL!!!

Too bad there weren't any videos.  I still laugh to myself thinking about it as it happened not once but twice.  Ha ha ha!!!

Family we-fie! I love LOVE this photo of all of us :-)

Okay, heading back in as we only rented the pontoon for 2 hours and the time went by so quickly!

Here's our dream-home along the lake.  Just look at that pretty (and huge!) house:

As we arrived near the dock, fish were being released into the water:

The kid that was helping us dock said that he had never seen that before.  And I think he said he had worked there for 12 years or more?

What a fun day!  To be continued - with golf tomorrow :-)