CANOE TRIP

On Memorial Day, after a few years of twarted plans, Zack and Steve finally got to canoe the San Raphael River. The 20 mile stretch passes through what's called Utah's "Little Grand Canyon". With the exception of late May and early June, there usually isn't enough water flow to avoid a lot of walking.
By 9am My mom and I dropped off my guys at Fuller Bottom, then drove to the take-out at the Swinging Bridge and dropped off Steve's truck. It had rained the previous couple days but the muddy roads were still in relatively good shape.
Before long on the river, the sun came out and things warmed up nicely. The canyon narrowed and the river sometimes passed right up against the cliff walls. The steady current kept them moving along with ease. Along the river banks, the lush, green vegetation stood in stark contrast to the dry, red desert surrounding. Birds and beaver made their presence known as they drifted along.
About noon they stopped at a grove of cottonwood trees and had lunch. Steve scouted around and was impressed by the many color varieties of the prickly-pear cacti in the area.
Surprisingly, they only saw one other group of boaters (camping along the river) and only 2 hikers the whole time.
After 5 hours on the water, they made it to the bridge and loaded up the canoe again. It had been a while since Zack and Steve had spent the day together and they both really enjoyed joking and singing together as they cruised through the beautiful gorge.

Everybody Was Water Gun Fighting

Zack's friend Jake come over yesterday afternoon to play. The boys went up to Zack's bedroom to hangout. After about 15 minutes Zack came down stairs and had the most mischievous look on his face. He whispered in my ear that he and Jake had prepared some water balloons and they wanted to throw them at Katie and Becky and did they have my permission. I said yes as long as they were prepared to accept any retaliation that came their way. They agreed. So I led the girls outside and had them stand on the grass. Out came the boys and surprised the girls by throwing a balloon right at their backs. THE WAR was ON!!!

Steve lent Becky his jumbo water gun. She could hard carry the gun once it had water in it and pulling the trigger took quite a bit of muscle. The good thing was just having that gun on your person was quite intimidating to the boys. The smaller waterguns quickly were added to the artillery and some old ice cream buckets for throwing water.

There were no real casualties when the two sides parted, other than some very wet clothes. Steve and I determined that the girls had managed to over take the boys. Definitely a case of girl power.