Idaho River Trip!

It was a bit of a cold day that we set out to go down the river. Here are the kids, minus Lily!

Esme fell asleep on the way to the river.

We tied all of the tubes to the big raft and sent all the big kids and adult except for me and Whit out in the river.

Sun and lots of fun in the beginning.

Notice how none of the adults, Kelsie, and Andrew's little sister Jody didn't have on life vests.

Morgan had Hannah on her lap the entire time. A bit of white water.

Notice how the rope goes through all of the tubes, right under everyone's legs.

Notice me and Whit with all the toddlers.

The other Andrew and I tried to paddle, but no matter how hard we tried the river took us where it wanted us to go.

We couldn't keep the little girls from sitting on the side of the boat. I figured I would have to jump in if any of them went over. Or maybe I would have to send Whit in since such is the case during most boat situations.

Esme didn't actually have a life vest, so she wore this little floaty swimsuit.

Jonas loved the freedom of the tube until it started to rain on us. Then he moved over to the raft because it got to cold in the water for his skinny bones.

The scenery was amazing.

Esme, Maren, and Leah took turns hanging with Kelsie in her tube.

I just thought this was funny. Usually she is biting her own arms.

A close up of the cat fights!

Hee, hee, hee!

Now to explain all those things I was asking you to take notice of, here are the stories. This is a picture of the first rock we hit or I guess got stuck on. The raft and some of the tubes went on one side of this large rock and Andrew and Marge's tube went on the other. At this point Marge got into the raft with a scraped knee and her husband went back into the tube. Save number one! The next time this happened it was Andrew's little sister Jody that got caught on the other side of a rock. The last time it happened was at a point where there used to be a bridge and all that was left were these large boulder things. Anyways, again I was paddling my tail off and thought we had all made it past when I saw Jody's tube get sucked under this rock. The tube got lodged under it and pulled everyone else out of their tubes. It was a bit like a wave watching it from the boat. I was a sick for a second thinking that the raft was going over too, along with all the little toddlers (one not wearing a vest, I might add). The raft however stayed afloat. Then I started thinking about all these people being pulled out of their tubes. First I saw Jody float down and hit Andrew in the chest, then I noticed Kelsie's head under the water a bit (I wasn't as worried about her cause she is a great swimmer), I saw Morgan and Hannah floating down the river but swimming to the side. Then I thought, great, I am going to have to get in and get that tube out of that rock. Luckily, Andrew was pulling himself up the raft, through the current to help us get out of this mess. I had already tried tugging on the rope that was attached to the tube, it didn't budge. With all of his strength he pulled on that tube and it still didn't budge. He looked up at me and asked if I had a knife. I was like what, I guess I'll look around the boat. In the background I could hear all of the little girls screaming, my two the loudest! Whit is doing her best to comfort them. After scrounging around the raft looking for a crazy knife, I turned around and save number two, Andrew pulled with all of his strength and got that raft out. I truly don't know how he did it. Poor Jody was crying and water logged. We paddled over and picked up all the others that were out of the tubes. Hannah jumped in the raft and said, I am never going tubing again ( the trip is already planned for next summer, babe). We picked up Morgan and Kelsie and floated the rest of the river shivering with kids crying. It was the best time ever! I was worried that Jody was a bit in shock, but she survived and will hopefully come again with us next year.

Lessons learned:

Life jackets for everyone, and

no tying the tubes to the raft.