The River Wild

Ok, I just have to have this little confession here. As it was happening I was swearing that I'd never tell a soul what happened, but here I am posting it on the world wide web. The other day we had this great idea to go down to the river and let the kids and dog play in the water. We get down there and of course other people are there too. I am holding Jake and holding Jessica's hand. Stan had Rebecca's hand and had the dog on a make-shift leash (she's not leash trained, by the way, and was not liking life at the moment).

So we step into the water...it's pretty shallow and we decided to walk out to the sandbar (technically it was a rock bar...all the sand gets washed away). We get going and at that particular place the current is stronger than we anticipated. Halfway there, Jessica looses her footing and so I'm trying to hold Jake in one arm and lift her up to get her footing again with the other arm. She starts freaking out and wont put her feet down. At the same time Stan is trying to get the puppy across and Rebecca (who had decided she could cross without holding Stan's hand) looses her footing and she gets carried away by the river. With Stan's "cat-like reflexes" he quickly gets (throws?) the dog to the little island and he jumps out and grabs Rebecca, who had stopped freaking out and I think was actually liking it...for a split second.

Mackenzie gets across (amazingly) successfully and I'm still dragging Jessica who's feet were now floating down river and all I have ahold of is her hand and I'm thinking that any moment my foot is going to slip too and the three of us will be floating down river together (we dont have swiming suits on either...just our regular clothes). So, I'm yelling at Jessica to put her feet down, she's crying and still freaking out. I holler at Mackenzie to grab Jessica's other hand and between the two of us we got her up there. But not before she looses her shoe. Stan has just gotten Rebecca on dry ground and once again with his "cat-like reflexes" he jumps back out in the river and saves it. The other people who were sitting there watching this whole scene...start clapping.

I was mortified and thoroughly embarrassed and ready to go crawl under a rock. I know we looked like complete idiots out there. But I guess at least we were entertainment for those people. I'm sure they are still laughing about it. Life lesson number 58 - humility. Sorry, no pictures were taken of this event....at least not that I'm aware of.

Wow! Two posts in one day...guess I'm making up for lost time.