Kayaking Adventure

This weekend I went kayaking with my dad, Dayna (my dad's girlfriend), Shelby, my aunt and uncle Larry and Dixie, and a bunch of guys my dad goes to work with and their kids. There was about fifteen of us and we went down the muddy creek in the San Rafael. I guess there are only a few weeks in the year that you can kayak down it where there is enough water. This weekend however, the water was the highest it has been in a long time. We woke up Saturday morning at 4:45 and left the house around 5:30-6ish. It was supposed to be a three and a half hour drive and we ended up getting lost down the wrong road for about an hour and that was the start of a very long day. ha We finally got in the river a little before one and Shelby and I tipped over on the very first corner. She hit into the side of the bank and I was making fun of her telling her she didn't know how to steer and then I ended up slamming into her and we both flipped over. I then noticed my paddle was floating down the river without me...I was literally up the creek without a paddle. ha We got back on our kayaks and I floated down without my paddle for awhile until I found someone from our group who had saw my paddle and grabbed it for me. The trip was eighteen miles and was supposed to take us about four and a half hours. We didn't get to the end of it until eight thirty that night, therefore it took us seven and a half hours to get down the stupid thing. It was white water pretty much the whole time and had pretty bad rapids. Did I mention none of us had ever kayaked down a river before? My dad had taken us kayaking on a lake before but this was completely different. We all ended up tipping over quite a few times and when we would tip over we had to hold onto the kayaks so we didn't lose them and the current was going so fast it would pull us down the river and we would bang our legs against rocks and it hurt really bad. I got sucked under the water a few times and I was really scared. My aunt Dixie did end up losing her kayak and paddle down the river after she wrecked one time. Her husband Larry had to float down the river with nothing and she took his kayak. A few miles down someone was able to grab their kayak and then another mile or so past that someone had found their paddle so they were extremely lucky. It did slow us down quite a bit though and we thought for sure we were going to have to camp along side of the river that night with nothing. Another thing that slowed us down a lot was that our kayaks would fill up with water and then would tip over extremely easy...so we were constantly stopping off the side of the bank and having to dump the water out of the kayaks. I ended up tipping over about five times and two of which I got banged up pretty bad. Shelby and I did the whole thing without any shoes and by the end of the trip my feet were killing me. There was a few times when the water was calm that I actually enjoyed being on the river. It was extremely beautiful there and it could have been a lot of fun if the water hadn't been so bad and rough. When we finally made it to the end we had to wait for all of the dads to drive about an hour to go back and pick up the other vehicles...so we sat there in the dark for about two hours. When they got back they had to load up all of the kayaks but the kayaks were down a hill and we weren't allowed to drive vehicles down there. Luckily we had two fourwheelers and they bought the kayaks up one at a time with the fourwheelers. We didn't end up leaving the pick up spot until twelve thirty that night. It took us forever to drive on the dirt road until we could get back to the main highway and we were almost out of gas. We finally made it to the first town at three thirty and barely made it there because we were so low on gas. We filled up and drove a little further then we had to stop and sleep for awhile. We didn't end up getting home until seven the next morning. We were all so tired and sore and dirty. I showered and ate something and then went to bed. When I woke up my whole body was aching. I am still way sore and hurt all over but we were grateful we made it out of there and home safely. Here are some pictures of the muddy creek in the San Rafael that we kayaked down.



Catch up!

So I am a little behind on blogging and have a lot to catch up on. To start off, I moved back home for the summer. Tyler is still out there and just got moved to Birmingham Alabama yesterday (finally). We are trying to save as much money this summer as we can and it was costing us too much to have me stay out there with him...So on the seventeenth of this month I flew back home and it was the longest day of flying ever! I am staying at my dad's in Fairview and have been busy unpacking and organizing my room. It has been good to spend time with family again (which I have been doing a lot of), but it stinks to be away from Tyler and has been a lot harder than we thought it was going to be. I am trying to find a part time job as well and hopefully can get hired on somewhere soon.

Tyler has been pretty busy with work lately and has been doing really well. He doesn't run into any problems that he can't fix himself and has become really good at what he is doing :) I'm so proud of him for working so hard for us and for doing such a great job. I know he doesn't like to be out there alone and I am so grateful for the sacrifices he is making for us, we know it will be worth it in the end. He just moved into a new hotel in Birmingham with one of the other techs. He says it is really nice and has a full sized kitchen with everything they need. Plus he gets to have maids come clean up after them and they serve them really nice breakfasts every morning and dinner Tuesday through Thursday...so it doesn't sound too bad. ha Here are some pictures of his new home for the next month or so (I just found them off the internet so they don't look exactly like his room but close enough ha)...

Residence Inn Homewood by Marriott

His living area in his room

Desk area

Kitchen

Here is the pool and tennis court

And the fitness center







Family Fun

Tyler's aunt Diane and her family live in Tennessee about three and a half hours from where we are staying. We decided to drive to their house on Sunday and go visit them. I had only met Di and her husband once before when we went to New York and stayed with them. Her daughter Dawn and her fiance live with them now and I had never met them yet. They moved to Tennessee about a year ago and we figured we wouldn't be this close to them again in a long time so we made the trip. It was a pretty long drive and we saw two pretty bad accidents along the way but we finally made it there around 1:30 that afternoon. They had four little dogs and 6 puppies. The puppies were so so cute and we wanted to take one home with us but we couldn't :( They fed us hamburgers and chicken and a few different salads and vegetables...it was really yummy! We were grateful for the opportunity to visit them and were sad when it was time to leave.

Just us at their house

Tyler with his Aunt Diane

Dawn, Me, Ty, and Jeff

Tyler with his cousin Dawn

Ty with one of their dogs

Ray, Me, Tyler, and Diane

Also while we were there we saw cicada bugs for the first time. I guess they only come out every thirteen years and we happened to be there the year they were out. They were actually really annoying during the day. There are thousands of these bugs all over and they make a really loud whistling noise all day long and don't stop until it gets dark. It is extremely loud and would drive me nuts. They told us they hibernate under the ground for thriteen years and then come up out of the ground and are these beetle things. Then they lose their shells and can fly. They are only out for a short amount of time and then they have sex and die. ha Here is a pictures I stole from the internet of one of them...

I also got to see lightning bugs/fire flys for the first time and I loved them. They were so much fun!! They were just lighting up everywhere in their back yard. We caught one and their butts are bright and light up. I wish we had them in Utah.





Zoo Fun!

Last Saturday a bunch of us wives decided to go to the zoo here in Memphis. One of the wives here wanted to take her kids there and asked if the rest of us wanted to join her. I hadn't been to the zoo in so long so I thought it sounded fun...plus it was something to do to get us out of our hotel rooms. ha I felt bad Tyler couldn't come though and wished they had some time off besides on Sundays :( It was an extremely hot day though and by the end we were exhausted...we spent almost all day there and seen lots and lots of animals. Here our some pics of our fun day:

The group...except Michelle (she was the one taking the picture). Shay, Karissa, Heather, Me, Kailee, Jen, Miyah, Walker, Olivia, Kerri, Lynn, Bexi.

The Cute Panda eating lunch

One of the polar bears...they were swimming and playing around and lots of fun to watch.

And of course the Giraffe's :)

Penguins!! Super Cute :)

Elephants

The Zebras were fun to see

Cooling down

It was a really fun day and I am glad we decided to go! Thanks girls for making it a good day :)