We are officially homeowners! (Well, kinda...)

WE BOUGHT A HOUSEBOAT! YEA!!!

This has been a dream of ours for quite some time now, but it recently became a reality. Our new home away from home is located on Lake McClure. Lake McClure is nestled in the Sierra Nevada foothills about 20 miles south of Yosemite. (About a 2.5 hour drive from our home in San Jose) The lake is surrounded by both pine and oak trees and a lot of different kinds of wild life. (Including things like donkey's and Bald Eagles!) Pulling from the Lake McClure website, it tells me that McClure has a yearly average temperature of about 70 degrees, (Reaching well into the 90's during the hot summer months) and an average yearly surface water temperature of about 80 degrees.


We decided that our little family is not really a traveling family. We both hate to fly and Rick doesn't love being outside the comfort of the American borders. But we want and need to vacation so we decided that this would be a great compromise. It's close, but it's not so close that you don't feel like you actually got away for the weekend. We just LOVE it up there.

We have been blessed by our dear friend Eric Kinser, who has selflessly allowed us to crash at his houseboat for the past 3 years. But with the arrival of Bella, we decided that it might be a good idea to look at getting our own place. (We didn't want to worry about bothering anyone with middle of the night crying baby, or early morning squeals of delight.) And although we love being recurring visitors at Eric's boat, there's just something about having your own place. It's ours and we can do what we want with it.

Our boat comes fully furnished and is 90% baby proof with gates all around both the top and bottom decks. (A HUGE plus!) It's huge. At least I think it's huge. I'd give you the measurements if I knew what they were...but I don't. =)

We are VERY excited about our new summer home. My favorite things about this lake are as follows...

#1-You have a 360 degree lakefront view that changes...all the time, no matter what.
#2-The water is warm enough so that even 6:30am wake board runs aren't unpleasant.
#3-You are in the middle of the lake so you don't have to deal with bugs.
#4-At night, it's PITCH BLACK...which makes for INCREDIBLE star-gazing.
#5-I could write about 20 more things...but this is already a really long post.

We don't just desire, but EXPECT that all of our family and friends will help us enjoy this place. One of the reasons we got it to be able to bless others with a place they could get away and enjoy. So we better see you there!

Front deck

Living room.

Kitchen view

Another view of the kitchen

Another view of the living room...

Bathroom and pantry...but just to be clear, they aren't in the same room. HA!

Another bathroom view...

Top deck

Another view from the top...

Our new BBQ...(It's nicer than the one we have at our actual house)

Back deck

And here are 2 small items that came with the boat. Ahhhh, I can see us all enjoying chips, salsa and margarita's on that big floating island!