In my family, whenever someone pulls a prank on Pops (or something similar) it’s very likely that he will say, after he finishes laughing, “You’re out of the will!”

This is grave punishment indeed.

I’m fairly certain that I’ve been removed from The Will far more times than I’ve been reinstated, so my chances are not looking good.  When Mom saw the new and improved “DOUGLAS” that we/Joey made for Pops following the demolishment of his old office in the Evil Cedar Rapids Flood of 2008 she declared that Joey was permanently in The Will and not allowed to be removed anymore.  (Due to the large quantity of editing and compilation that the new and improved “DOUGLAS” took.)

I’m not sure how Pops feels about this, seeing as he wasn’t consulted first.  Joey has been totally taking advantage of his non-exempt status.

On Monday afternoon of our trip to Boundary Waters, Pops felt that it was wise for us to put up the rain tarp.  His weather report said it was going to rain on Wednesday and we all wanted to be ready!  There is nothing worse, folks, than being stuck in your tent during rain.  It’s much better to be stuck under a rain tarp and wearing rain gear…at least you can move around under a rain tarp.

The tree situation was sketchy at best, so everyone but me scoped out which trees would be best to hang the tarp from.  Laura got right in the action and held the tarp up while the guys tried to guesstimate how high to tie the knots.

I really like Brother in all these pictures (light blue shirt) because he looks very concerned and intense throughout the whole process.  It gets better later.

Joey, my fearless husband, refused to put on shoes.  Observe:

Those are Brother’s feet on the left and Joey’s on the right.  I’m sorry for those of you who have a foot aversion, just forget you saw this picture.  Anyway, keep the “no shoes” thing in mind as you keep reading.

Another classically concerned look from Brother.  I can just imagine his thoughts: “Oh, will we find a branch to tie the rope around?  What if we can’t?  Can I build one one of rocks and sticks and duct tape?”  The possibilities are endless, really.  Brother is an engineer and he’s always thinking of crazy stuff.

Stephen stepped back a few paces and got the view from a different angle.  His insights were valuable.

There was a branch up just out of reach, so Joey suggested that he climb the tree to tie the rope around it.  Then some wiseguy (probably Joey) thought “Oh, how about just climb on Pops’ shoulders and do it from there!”  Please take careful note of Brother on the corner of all these pictures.

Poor, poor dad.

Brother steps in to save the day….

(I think he’s trying to ensure that he gets a “double portion” of The Will someday.)

I can just see my dad wondering if he’s going to survive having Joey stand on his shoulders.  POOR DAD.

With very little incident, Joey tied the rope around the branch and that side of the tarp was hung.  One more to go, and the tree they’d have to use for this last corner was looking even more tricksy than the other one where Joey tried to kill my dad.

Joey tied the rope to the purple Nalgene bottle, just like MacGyver would have done, and threw it up over the branch.  The Nalgene bottle got stuck.  Very, very high up in the tree.  So, Joey climbed it….barefoot.

He stood both feet on that rotted off branch.  I was sure he was going to die or severely injure himself.  (But he waited two days before he did that, which was nice of him.)  After several tense moments, he got the Nalgene bottle unstuck and the rope strung just the way it needed to be for the rope.

He shimmied down the tree and cut his feet up.

Then I bandaged him up.

We decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather (before the rain) and swim across the channel.  The water in the lake was freezing cold, so Stephen braved it and dove in the water first.  The challenge was to race to him…if someone refused to get in the water, they got dunked.  (Which is way bad punishment.)

See above, Pops is losing…but as you can also see he has a very good running start.  Me (in the 70s suit which you are not allowed to laugh at – it was very functional), well, I look just plain timid to get in the water.

Oh look, Jenna totally lost.

And, if you squint, you can barely see us on the shore of the channel.  It took FOREVER to swim/float there and back.  We were all very, very tired.