We were in Utah for a week, and came home to a mess -- as usual. The day after getting home we had some things scheduled, so I didn't get around to unpacking and putting my house back together till the next day. Needless to say, my poor neglected kids ended up watching endless TV and movies so I could get things back in order. That night, Addie was saying the bedtime prayer. She has her standard opening, "Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for the fun things we did...." and so on. When she stared praying with these exact lines, I guiltily looked up at Corey in apology, then she continued with, "... and thank you for the boring things we did today, too!" I almost choked with trying to keep my laughter inside. The best part is she seemed to really be thankful for what she was saying.
I'm a bad mom.
I'm also a bad picture taker. While in Utah, we went camping, swimming, visited with different people, Grandpa saw his newest grandbaby for the first time... and we didn't pull the camera out ONCE!!! Camping was sort of on purpose, didn't want it damaged or lost. But we were just neglectful this time, and that's pretty sad. I will say, we were dealing with sick kids (mostly Addie and Hudson, Max was sick before we left and is probably the reason the others got sick). It seemed like a repeat of last year when we went to Utah and went camping and the kids were sick the whole time. I'm not talking about sniffles here. Let's just say that I've changed my fair share of diarrhea diapers on potty-trained Addie out in the great outdoors.
I also had some major drama while camping, and had to go through it all without Corey (I hate being the grown up). We were camping up at Flaming Gorge, and our favorite activity to do there is to raft the Green River that lets out of the dam. Now, this is a very mild river, and I am not a very adventurous person (okay, I'm a pansy), so when I say I was excited to go down the river with Addie and Max, know that this is very low risk. Usually. Corey was off fly-fishing with his friend from Utah, so he missed the boat. Mostly because I didn't think I'd even go since the kids were in such poor shape, so I let him go do his thing instead. Addie was dying to go, and had been feeling better all morning. Hudson was also on the upswing, so I felt better about leaving him with my mom and sister. I decided, at the last minute, to join the second group of rafters with Addie and Max.
We started down the river, and about 10 minutes into our trip it starts raining. Mildly, at first, but then we are starting to get more lightning and thunder, and lots of rain. Cold rain. Imagine, heading down the river with only one way to get off it -- at the end (about a 2 hour trip). Addie's crying by now, because she's cold and wet, and sick! All I can think is that I'm not doing her health any favors and will be paying for this lapse in judgement come nighttime. Plus, we're in this canyon, so the thunder seems so much more intense than normal. We ended up pulling off to the side of the river to wait out the rain under an overhang of rock. Addie's crying, Max is eating mud, I'm kicking myself, and we're all worried. Finally, we see the skies starting to lighten, so we head out again.
In our raft with Addie, Max and myself was my sister Kristy and her husband Mike, 6 yr old son Brandon, and 17 yr old daughter Char. Kristy, Mike, and I had been rowing while Char entertained the kids, but I needed to love on them and try my best to keep them warm. Imagine me sitting on the side of this rubber raft with Addie between my legs, Max on my left, and Brandon to the left of him and my arms around all three of them. Yeah, I'm sure they were plenty warm. We decided to just hit it and row as fast as we can to the end, so Kristy, Mike and Char started working. With this rain came additional speed on the river, so that seemed like it was on our side until we hit the first rapid. It just came on too fast, so they couldn't steer easily and we headed straight for this big boulder. I'm still sitting on the side of the boat with my arms around the kids, so I just braced myself and held on tight. We bounced off it and got back on course, no damages. My sister commented that she'd feel better if I were sitting in the boat instead of off the side, so I sent Brandon back to her and I sat in the middle with my arms around Addie on one side and Max on the other. We only had one real rapid left to get through and it's called the Mother-in-law. Now, Char had gone on the first run, so this was her second time going down the river this day so she was telling us how much further we had to go, what to expect, etc. She said that the mother-in-law wasn't as bad as she remembered in past years, but she was a little nervous with the state of the river this time around. We saw it up ahead, and planned the best way through it. I guess this is a rougher rapid because it has boulders at the beginning of the rapids and at the end, so it's just more to navigate through. We started through it, and the speed of the river threw us directly at this monster boulder -- again! I braced myself, but the next thing I knew we were in the water, under the water, being thrown all around. I still had a hold of both kids, death grip by now, and my only thought was to push them out of the water. I was pretty sure we were dead (I wish I were kidding), but somewhere out there I heard someone say, "Keep swimming, just keep swimming! Swim this way!!" I realised it was a man in a kayak at the side of the river. At hearing this, I calmed down and knew it would be okay.
I was closest to the kayaker, and was swimming on my back with Addie balanced on my chest and Max in my left arm. I was trying to get him to stop crying (yeah, I'm sure soothing words will reassure him that the cold water we were just tossed into was nothing to cry about). This guy started yelling at me to not capsize him, and all I could think was that he didn't have to be mean about it. Of course I wouldn't risk him, couldn't he just be nice? Look what we just went through!! Looking back, I'm sure the crazy lady with two very small children that almost drowned didn't seem like the kind of person that would be rational while being rescued, so he was justified in his abruptness. He got me to shore, and I couldn't get my legs under me. I just laid on this rock, most of my body still in the river, with my babies pulled tight on top of me. My niece was next out of the water, so she took the kids from me so I could get up, and that's when I realized I didn't have any shoes on and my legs and two toes were killing me. I must have fought with that boulder to get the bruises I earned later on, but I couldn't walk well till the next day. Plus, I lost my favorite around-the-house shoes to the river! Icing, I tell you!
As soon as I was standing, someone behind me asked if I had any shoes. I turned around, and it was a ranger and his wife patrolling the river in their much-safer-looking-than-a-rubber-raft row boat. That's when I looked back on the river and saw our raft still wrapped around that killer boulder, and that's when I thought I would throw up. That's when it hit me that we were safe and we weren't going to die and we were beyond blessed regardless of our bad decisions. And that's when I started shaking and feeling sick. And that's when I remembered I had to face Corey. "He's going to kill me!" Oh, well. We were alive and that's all that mattered.
The ranger and his wife (who chatted my ear off the whole way which was weird until I realized they were trying to keep us calm and out of shock) took me and the three younger kids down to the end of the run in their boat, to our warm cars with warm towels and promises of hot chocolate back at camp. I thought that the rest of our crew was being picked up a few minutes later by a different ranger, but later found out that the kayaker retrieved the raft from the boulder and they all boarded up again and rowed to the end of the run. Let me tell you, there would have been NO WAY my kids would have gotten back in that thing. Me either!
The cool thing is, after we hit that first boulder I suggested to Addie that we should pray for help from Heavenly Father. Help to keep us warm, help to get us back faster, help to help us feel better. A very simple child's prayer that was most definitely answered.
