River Fun

We had a really fun weekend! This past friday, me and the girls went with my Granny and Papa to meet my Aunt Sheila and my cousin Justin at a park near their house. I can't remember for the life of me the name of the state park. But, Papa went to play disc golf, and the rest of us went to the beach area on the river! I'm not going to lie, I was a little nervous, because it's a river and there are only a couple thousand gators in the river (according to Justin). And I was a little nervous because pools have spoiled me and I like to see where my feet are stepping. But we got in and had lots of fun. Ama and Abi absolutely loved it, Abi kept going under the water on purpose and coming up just squealing and giggling. Ama had a blast, and they loved playing in the water with Aunt Sheila! She's so much fun and the girls love her (so do I!). I had to keep dismissing my grossed out thoughts every time I went through a patch of really warm water, especially when I was near someone...

But definitely the most fun was Justin bringing their kayaks, and I got to go kayaking. At first, I was somewhat terrified. I was good in the roped off swimming area, but out there with the waves from the boats rocking my itty bitty boat, the fear of being turned over and a gator or some river creature grabbing me terrified me! But Justin told me to 'grow me some', and I tried ; )  We kayaked to the "blue hole", a natural spring. I had no idea what to expect, this was my first time going to something like this, and to save me from major embarrassment I am not even going to begin to describe what I thought I would see... We kayaked through a little bit of a wooded area (yes ALL my strength went into keeping that kayak away from the land), and we came out into the spring. There were several guys hootin' and hollerin' and one girl standing on a wooden platform built off the tree and she was holding a rope and they were cheering her on.  I watched her take the plunge, and then following her I watched these guys do all these tricks and flipping up in the air into the water, I had never seen anything like this before and was amazed!! The "hole" where all this was taking place was not a big area, and there was a huge rock where we all sat and watched these people. One of the guys told me they average about 7-8 injuries a month, and just 2 months ago a boy died there. If you don't let go of the rope at the right time, or you jump out too far, you can smack the big rock, and nothing good comes from that! I was nervous watching all these guys, they were climbing to the tops of 30 ft. trees and hanging from the branches and dropping into the "hole", They said the blue hole is about 70-80ft. deep! I am very thankful that Justin made me swing off the rope. Had none of the other people have been there I wouldn't have done it, but I couldn't look like too big of a chicken, so I did. I swung off the rope and hit the water, and it seemed like it took forever to reach air, I actually pulled a muscle in my thigh kicking to reach air so fast (who knows what was lurking below!!). Of all times for my camera's battery to die, this was the worst! I wanted to catch what these guys were doing on camera so bad! Justin had his phone and I snapped a few pictures of Ama swinging off the kids rope. I had so much fun at the river. I had a lot of fun with Justin, and I'm so thankful to him for taking me and Ama out there and being so great with Ama! Here are the only pictures I got...

 Getting ready to go swimming on the beach area!

 Justin (with Granny in the background)

This is from the cell phone, and you can't see, but Justin is with Ama behind the tree getting her ready to swing off the little rope.

And then Justin got in the water while a guy helped her swing, and this is her landing in the water! I was so proud of her that she actually did it, she was pretty nervous!!

 And all grin, this is her swimming back to the rock with Justin : )