Canoe Trip

A few weeks ago, we headed out for a little adult R&R and went canoeing up on the Upper Iowa River with a group of wonderful friends. It was so much fun and much needed time away. Lots of sun, drinks, music, laughter, and 'trips down memory lane' filled the weekend. We have decided to make it an annual trip and will be going the weekend after the 4th of July every year. For those of you interested in joining us next year, you must submit an application, and the 11 of us that went this year will sit down and vote if you make the trip with us or not. It is not as easy as it sounds: you must be able to drink and canoe all day, no party poopers allowed, and no complaining allowed. Are you up for the challenge?? And, the other thing: All 11 of us must like you and we are a pretty tough crowd. May the best ones win!!

Tim and I are also looking to add more members to our exclusive Fat Kids Club. If interested, ask for details, but your BMI better be high enough. Applications are also needed for the club membership. If you want to avoid the application process, all you have to do is stand on a chair and have it break beneath you. This must happen at a big event in front of a lot of people, that is a definite shoo in to the club!

Anyways, it was absolutely beautiful up there!! The cliffs are great! The water was a little dirtier than usual due to all the flooding, but it wasn't so bad. We saw lots of snapping turtles along the way and no snakes, that makes for a good day!

Here is a collage of some pictures of us throughout the day. Thank you to Monica for the pics, I wasn't brave enough to take my camera out on the water, you never know someone might tip you over! Pretty amazing that none of us did tip at all that day. Tad and I had our money on Tim and Jaime for being the ones ending up all wet. But, we had to take it easy on them, they did have the radio in their canoe, and the tunes were good that day and we couldn't risk losing the music.

These pictures were taken at the cold springs along the way. All the guys and a couple of us brave girls (me and Monica) took a dip in the cold springs. They were freezing, but it was so refreshing. The water was coming right out of the ground there and made a little pool to dip in. Our friend Clint liked it a little too much!! He is the one shown completely under the water!! Did a mention that water was freezing??

When we were all done canoeing, a night of bags and sitting by the fire was so nice and relaxing. A big thank you to Alyssa for bringing the huge hula hoop!! It was fun and very entertaining, we need to have more of a contest next year!!

It was such a fun trip and we are looking forward to next year already. Also, a big thank you to my mom and my in-laws for watching my kidos for the weekend, I could tell they had lots of fun!