Adapt and Overcome

I am anxiously awaiting Kaelyn’s appointment this morning. In the meantime, I thought I’d blog about our rafting weekend.

This weekend was all about remaining flexible and powering through the unexpected. Things didn’t always go as planned; the weather was crazy and the water unpredictable. Still, we all kept great attitudes and had a wonderful time despite the “challenges”. Adapt and overcome was definitely our theme…

For us, the weekend really started Thursday evening. Our good friend, Geraldine, came to dinner, with two of her daughters and granddaughter. Her granddaughter is just two months older than Kaelyn. We had a great time getting to know her family and watching the babies play together. Afterwards, we contemplated packing everything up, but decided instead, to sit back, relax and enjoy some strawberry daiquiris.

Because of this procrastination, which is really unusual for me, Friday morning was a lot more hectic than it needed to be. We normally take our van camping because we can turn the backseat into a bed and don’t have to deal with the weather. But, on this trip, that didn’t work out. Roger spent the majority of the morning attempting to replace the fan belt. Two trips to the auto parts store and our friend Rick’s attempt to help move things along, and the van still wasn’t fixed. That led to reloading all our camping equipment, as well as getting tents and air mattresses out of our attic and into our truck. I did my best to get myself and Kaelyn packed and ready as fast as I could to help out Roger and Rick. In the end, we left an hour later than planned. Our caravan patiently waited for us and we still were able to get to the campsite early enough to secure the river side locations (the only purpose of getting there early). We enjoyed a picnic lunch (for Roger and me, it was leftovers from the night before) and a lot of relaxation by the river before we set up the campsite. The rest of our group slowly trickled in and by nightfall, we were all present and ready for a big bbq. Roger is the grill master and cooked up tri-tip and the best tasting pork tenderloin I’ve ever eaten. It was chilly that night (a first for this particular trip) and Kaelyn had trouble falling asleep. We bundled her up and she actually stayed very warm…but that didn’t stop me from waking up a thousand times that night to check on her.

Saturday was very exciting and dramatic. There were some mishaps on the water in the morning that scared a few people. Roger had to make another rescue of rafters stuck on rocks, and Kenny actually took some water in his lungs, which wasn’t great. Everyone made it to lunch in one piece, but several rafters opted out of going back out on the water in the afternoon. Those that did continue on, came back early due to the hail…yes, that’s right…hail, in late May, in California! Roger powered on with a couple others and for them, the sun did come out and they had a great time. The rest of us warmed up by the fire and took long, much needed afternoon naps.

Sunday, the weather was much better…mid seventies and even hot at times. All the rafters had a much better and easier time on the water. I’m also happy to say that Kaelyn is a trooper! She did great on her first camp trip and aside from a few moments of fussiness, when she was tired and over stimulated, she did great. She loves being the center of attention and there was no lack of it on this trip! After rafting was done, we broke down the camp and packed everything back up. I was tired and really wanted to go home, shower, and sleep, but the guys wanted to stay behind and enjoy “one last cigar by the water”. Roger worked so hard setting this trip up for everyone that I couldn’t deny him that, so I pretended that I wanted to take pictures of Kaelyn by the water and didn’t mind staying. We ended up leaving much later than we thought (the guys were having so much fun together) and didn’t get up until around 9:30 Sunday night. After unloading the truck, giving Kaelyn a bath and putting her to bed, and taking our showers, it was close to 11 before we got to bed. Exhausted, we were all asleep almost instantaneously. I don’t think I ever slept so deeply.

Now, I’m back to my normal week…minus this pesky doctor appointment. One more hour…I’ll update later.