2010, a GREAT year on the water.

2010 would be a GREAT year for boating on the Ohio River.  It started out fairly wet and kinda cool, but ended up a very very dry and mild year.  My grass looked terrible at home, and our shrubs didn't look much better, but man were we able to spend a TON of time out on the boat!  In 2009 we didn't get started until after the 4th of July.  We were determined to start this year off early, and the weather was kind enough to cooperate.  Now that we were starting to get comfortable about Nine Songs we especially wanted to make 2010 all about getting as many guests as we could on our boat.  My mother in law had gave us a very nice blue flag to fly from the front of the boat with 9 Songs wrote on it.  We flew it every time we went out until the very last weekend when the flag staff finally succumbed to the constant use and abuse by the wind at the front of the boat.

We enjoyed several Cincinnati Reds Firework Friday nights, and we were able to spend quite a bit of time overnighting on the boat at our favorite marina Manhattan Harbour.  Unfortunately for us, it seemed that the very few rain showers that we had all summer long came when we were spending the night on the boat.   But after the beginning of the year the river stayed pretty steady around pool stage and we were able to enjoy almost every Sunday all summer long on the boat. 

We had A LOT of guests in 2010.  They included; my Mom, Dad and sister Anna.  Amanda's Mom and Dad.  Amanda's cousins Kim, and Shannon and  Amanda's Aunt Melanie and Uncle Dale.  My Uncle Joe, Aunt Jan, Uncle Jim, Aunt Stephanie, Uncle Bill, Aunt Jackie, and cousin Amy and our friend from Germany Maxi.  My sister Anna had a couple of friends out with us as well.  Here are just a few pictures of some of our guests.  We were having such a GREAT time with everyone that we really failed to do a good job getting pictures.  Oh well, we will try harder next year.

Here are some of our favorite pictures of 2010

When Katlyn had spring break the girls went to Disney and I stayed home to "earn the earthly dollar".  I spent a weekend aboard the boat by myself launching, docking and loading the boat all by myself.  It was a good confidence booster.  I realized how far I had came since the first time we launched the boat not very much more than a year ago.  Here are some pictures from my solo trip;

We ended the season with a great ride down the Licking River to the Ohio River on a clear crisp fall day with my Mom and Dad, a  perfect way to end a GREAT year on the river!!!!