"Otherwise," I said, "we won't do it regularly." And this is true. We canoe once a year. But I love it!
Eugene and Sharae came with everyone but Blake, who is, poor guy, an adult who has to work. Christopher and Tysen came with all their kids, as well as Lacey Leishman and her kids. Mikayla came with all of her children, and then regretted multiple times throughout the day that she was there. To quote her much younger self, "I never should of come," she said. Her kids liked it, there are just lots of them, they are little, and Kal was having a very hard time. But she survived. Grandma Sue came, too, and helped wrangle the little people. In addition, I brought up Paul Moreland because we were going to camp (more on that in the next post), and Lilly and Emma Bradford because Blythe was certain that Makenna was still at girl's camp and she would have no one to paddle around with. Makenna got home from girl's camp last night, so it would have been fine, but it was fine having them there, so it all worked out.
We spent the day on the water. Brandt and Blythe and their posse were either in a canoe, on a kayak, or swimming about in the water practically the whole time we were there. They paused to eat, and I made them give up their watercraft so someone else could get in, but otherwise, they took advantage of our time at the lake. I was delighted by that. I was glad they wanted to be out and doing. I was out on the lake, too, and accidentally totally in the lake as well. It was really a great day.
Brandt, Paul, and I stayed after everyone else, and I went out all alone and communed with nature. My soul is nourished as I'm outside, breathing mountain air and using my body physically. I just love it! I think I said that earlier.
My first time out on the water, I took these four little people.
During our float, Lyla paddled, backwards, Rowen paddled, Cora paddled.
None of them was helpful.
They rocked the boat.
A lot!
Brandt, Paul, Luke, and Makenna deliberately swamped a canoe.
While it didn't sink, it took a lot of effort for them to right it and get it back to shore.
Kal began to run away down the trail that circles the lake,
so Cora and I went after him and convinced him to come back and throw rocks in the lake.
Kal and Cora both threw rocks and dirt.
Brick did some stand up kayaking.
Mikayla and I passed Kal back and forth between us.
Cora got in on the action, too.
Christopher said, "Take a picture of me splashing you with my paddle."
He didn't splash me, but I splashed him.
Lyla and Rowen wanted to go swimming, but they wanted Christopher to join them.
When they all got in the water, Lyla and Rowen said it was too cold,
but they still wanted Christopher to swim.
He said no.
Blythe and Lilly were out in a canoe.
They were really making it rock, standing up, putting their feet on the gunwales,
moving it violently back and forth.
They were probably trying to swamp it.
They didn't swamp the canoe, but they did knock Lilly out into the lake.
Then they couldn't get Lilly back into the canoe.
Brandt may have a future as a gondolier.
Paul decided he would swim across the lake.
I sent Brandt to paddle alongside him, just to make sure he had something to grab onto if he got tired.
He made it all the way across!
Brandt pulled Paul back across the lake so he didn't have to swim both ways.
No comments:
Post a Comment