Summer and Calming Down a bit

I have decided to pick my battles with my Daughter (Cheer). She has agreed to let me know when she is going to be late and I agreed to let her do her thing for a while. She is a good girl and really has not given me much cause to worry about her. She is dating a really nice young man, that seems to really care about her. He treats her right, and she is spending most of her time with him. I am a little worried, but I don't have much control over the situation. She is going to work and taking care of her obligations, so there is not much I can complain about. She will be 18 years old in 10 days, and she reminds me of that. She wants to go on a camping trip for her birthday. I bought her a big tent so that she can have fun. Her big brother is planning to accompany her. I think that he will keep them out of too much trouble. They are going to a state park, so I think they will be safe. I am planning to go up on Friday and feed them, then they will stay the rest of the weekend. She always has loved her birthday to revolve around some sort of outdoor event. Swim parties, trips and such. She is my outdoor girl. I can remember our first camping trip, She was almost 2 years old and took to the outdoors immediately. She loved it. We went to Arkansas and love every minute of the week long trip. Lots of really good memories on that trip.

This has been are long week and I am really tire. My younger brother traveled into town from Kansas City. I spent two evenings (Sunday and Monday, visiting with him and my family. It was nice) Then on Wednesday, my Company had a pool party and NRH20. I was out late, Cheer and F Man took a bunch of friends. So last night, I just crashed early and I am dragging today. This weekend I am going to take my Mom to a family barbecue for the 4th of July. She just had knee surgery and she is getting around slowly. I am glad she had it done, because she was in pain.

Sometime this weekend I have got to get some cleaning in, I have to admit that I am not to good at this. Something I need to work on.

Hope you all have a very good 4th of July with lots of fun, love and Family enjoyment.

Take care.

Canoe, can you?

I had my first experience with a canoe this weekend. I loved it. Being outdoors in nature.
Learning something new and being with my Brother and Sister in Law (She is much more like a sister) . I love hanging out with them. You can really feel thier love for one another and it is so inviting to be around. (I Love you Guys).

We are in the process of planning a family reunion and one of the activities will be a canoe trip, the campground that we are going to offers them, so we thought that we would take it just so that we would be knowledgable if anyone wants to go. It was an 8 mile 4 hour trip down the Brazos river in Glenrose Texas. The river is not very deep in most places, so the danger of tipping over is there, but if you did you could also just wade thru most of it with no trouble. We stopped on a little island and had a picnic lunch. We waded and stopped along the way to hang out in the water to cool off.

Then, we hit this one spot (Brother called it the chute) It was a spot where the water was rushing pretty fast and it looked to be about a foot deep. Of course I got the canoe stuck on a huge rock ( I was blissfully unaware of the need to navigate and be the lookout for big rocks) Sis and I got out to push the canoe off the rock. Brother had been doing this task most of the time, so this time, we thought that we would give him a break and take on the task. This was a Mistake......

The canoe took off, once we got it off the rocks, and lightened the load, with Brother still in the canoe. Sis and I though we would just wade thru this spot. Not a smart idea...., the current pulled us down, and we bounced off the rocks on the bottom, just like in the movies, bouncing up and down in the water (Life jackets still in the canoe) The water was about 3-4 foot deep, but the rush was such that you could not stay up. I went down first, Sister went down right after me. She yelled "Keep your butt up", how you are supposed to do this is beyond me, I had my feet in the air, my hands on my glasses and I was bouncing said anatomy off the rocks (Ouch!) I was going feet first, she was going head first, she hit a big rock with her hand. I was able to get my feet down eventuly and I was able to get out of the current and make it to the side (I swallowed so much water, I was coughing quite a bit) Sister zoomed on by, and stopped in the water that was much stiller. Then she told us about her hand. We thought it was broke, because she could not touch it, but It got a little better, so maybe it is just bruised really bad. It throbbed the rest of the trip.

We got back in the canoe and went a ways furter. Most of the river is concealed from the outside world with steep banks that go up several feet, so you really feel like you are out in the wilderness, even though there are houses all around. We saw horses drinking from the water, and a crane eating a fish. One large crane was sitting on the bank and did not want us to pass him, so just as we would get close to him, he would fly a little further up from us. He did this for about a half hour.

It was a fun trip, but about an hour too long. The last leg was hard. We were tired, the current was not very strong the last bend and we were having to really paddle. If I were to do it all over again, I would take the 3 hour trip instead of the 4 hour trip (the canoe rental place also offers a 6 hour trip. (I don;t think I could do that one)

Looking forward to doing it again and I can now recommend the trip the family at the reunion.

Little achey today tho. Wheres the Tylenol?