Rollin' on the River

We have arrived in the mother land! Carter and I made the 11 hour drive with my parents from Colorado to Texas! She was a trooper and did awesome, I didn't even whip out my DVD player until we were 4 hours from Abilene, I was so impressed with her. We had a wonderful week tucked away from civilization in Buena Vista. Our cabin was amazing and definitely lent it's self to hanging out and relaxing with my family and our best friends. We had several really fun adventures and I think I'll just break them up into a few different posts. The beginning of our week kicked off with a bang and we hit the rapids on the Arkansas river. We did our best to locate a last minute baby sitter but none could be found. My mom came to the rescue and watched Carter so that I could go rafting with everyone. It was incredibly unselfish and greatly appreciated. I felt guilty but took her up on it because I was looking so forward to going!

Carter and Roxi as we left the cabin:We arrived at the company where my sister and John work, it's called Noah's Ark. We geared up and got ready to head out.

Kim, Me, Clint and my Dad:The whole gang (the only thing missing was Nate): Joe Cool...oh wait that's my dad:
The understatement of the decade:We were all able to fit in one boat so John was our "official" guide, but they're both awesome:
All smiles (mine will be missing a little later):
Me and my fearless sister:

The water (for anyone who knows what this means) was running at about 2700. I'm not going to beat around the bush (even if I did the pictures would give me away) rafting just about scares the pee out of me. It is a wild feeling to be riding through this crazy water in an inflated boat. Here we are as we came through one of my sister's favorite rapids (which translated means one of the craziest)! It's called zoom flume...I am obviously fearing for my life at this point!

I'm panicking because I see what is ahead! In case you need a closer look...here is what sheer terror on my face looks like:

Needless to say I survived! The thing that I liken it to the most is a roller coaster ride (probably because those scare the pee out of me too)! But, like a roller coaster, you get off at the end and think WOW that was REALLY fun! So fun that sometimes you get in line and ride it again. Which, is exactly what I did almost a week later. The Saturday before we left I rode the river again. This time my sister was the guide and the water was running quite a bit higher at 3700 (the highest water they've seen since 1995). For whatever reason I was much less fearful the third time around. It may have been that I felt less "allowed" to be afraid since I was with a boat full of people I didn't know. It's a good thing I had kicked a little bit of my fear. As we went through the first rapid the boat in front of us flipped on a rock dumping everyone in it in the water. Thank God my instincts kicked in and I managed to grab a guy, the size of my dad, right as he almost went under out boat. I remembered hearing my sister talk about how to pull someone in and I grabbed him by the life jacket and fell backwards into the boat. He came in right on top of me...it was awesome! I heard my sister yelling for us to keep paddling (mind you her incredible guiding skills were getting us through a rapid while chaos was all around us). I got the guy off me grabbed my paddle and we made it through. For the mom of a two year old, whose daily excitement meter is usually based on how dirty Carter's diaper is, I was feeling like quite the adventurer. I put my sister and John right up there with Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods...they are amazing!