White water river rafting

This is Gloria, our friend from Orlando who moved to Brevard, NC. Her husban Juan is Bob's old assistant soccer coach and they all went rafting with us. This included their boys Juan and Pablo. I am in the back of the raft taking this picture. We had just started down the river, and talk about cold, this one was FREEZING! If you put your legs in (which we did a few times, your legs would turn numb!
All in all, it was a great experience. Nobody fell in from our group, or from Bob's group. The girls including Nick beat the boys (Bob's group) to the bottom of the falls.


Here is Bob's group getting into the river. Just as slow getting in as they were getting to the bottom. They tried to cheat by having Hayden knock us onto a big rock and getting us stuck! Nice try, but we (the girls & Nick) were way too smart for them. We got off the rock by "rocking" the raft and moving to the back and immediately paddled like maniacs to very quickly pass them and give them a taste of the freezing water by splashing them fiercely.
It was so much fun, I know we would all love to do this one again.

Here we are, all in a line (except me taking the picure) ready to brave the lazy river.

The river is named - The French Broad. It is one of the 3 largest rivers in the world.

We had a lot of fun doing this, although in some spots it did get a little shallow. We would have to get off our donut and push it ahead. We certainly didn't want it to POP! The river was cold at first, but then after all of the splashing and dunking of each other we really got used t0 it.

The beauty of nature

This is the back of our house. I came into the kitchen/breakfast nook and saw the Mum and doe - it seems they are waiting for the other doe to join them before they decide to cross the yard into the woods. They have noticed my movement and seen me looking at them. They didn't seem to mind though, so long as I did not go outside to bother them. What a beautiful sight. This happens almost on a daily basis - crossing our yard. It's so nice to see while we are sitting on the back porch eating dinner.





Mum makes the first dash across our back yard to the woods on the left of our house. One doe is close behind, but the second is strolling in the woods on the other side of the yard to see what it can find.














Here's the Mum and doe waiting for the sibling to decide whether it will join them or not.

If you click on this picture to zoom, you will see that the second baby finally arrived and joined the Mum and sibling. It is kind of hiding behind the other one. And Mum is ahead of them.

"I got one!!!!!"

Nicholas caught this Red Fish this morning (Fri) at the dock. What a beauty. It is 19 1/2 inches long, no weight to report since they forgot their scale. Nick and Hayden were both so excited, they brought it home and gutted it, and added it to the others we have in the freezer. We will be having a fish fry this coming weekend and enjoying the catch. I will let you all know how they tasted.

Nick and the "daddy fish" and Hayden and the "baby fish" When Hayden is not golfing and sneaking onto the golf course, he is fishing off a 1/4 long dock with Nicholas. They got lucky this morning and both reeled in something tasty.

"Town Pool"

Yesterday, I took the kids down to the "town pool" as they call it. Most people call it the community pool. We took a couple of other kids with us, and stayed for over 3 hours. The kids had so much fun. The water feels very refreshing.

I thought I would take advantage and take an updated picture of the kids - finally! If you zoom in, it looks much better. I enlarged it and put it in a frame.

Summer is long, and hopefully I can keep them busy and out of trouble for another month.

spindle legs.........

Can you guess who these "legs" belong to??? Nicholas was having fun in the pool and showing me his lovely "bird legs" if you ask me, they kind of look like Grandpa Mel's legs used to.

What do you think Grandpa???

Looking Glass Falls

What a great looking waterfall. We just pulled to the side of the road, and here we were. Just at the bottom of the falls is where the kids and Bob went in to take pictures.

It was soooooo cold - I was the smart one, I made sure not to go into the water above the ankles.

The kids (including the big one.... Bob) loved the water. It was very refreshing.

This is somewhere I most certainly would love to visit again.

chilly waters

As usual, Bob and Sara are the first ones into the chilly waters of the falls. Obviously this was a "kodak" moment. I wanted to be sure to get as much of the water in the background as possible.

After I took this picture, all of the kids and Bob took the plunge and got closer to the falls. In fact, they were so close that they could not stand up because it was so deep.

getting closer...

Here's Nick and Juan right next to the waterfall. I don't believe there was a way around it, because if there was they most certainly would have found it.

I wish I could have been able to get a closer shot, but the water was so cold that my feet were beginning to freeze. So this is the best I could do. There was no way that I was getting my full body into the water.

Full view of Sliding Rock

This is the view of Sliding Rock from the bridge that goes across the stream. They would all climb up the rocks underneath where I was taking the pictures.

Once you splash into the water, it really takes your breath away because of how cold it is. But I am sure it has to be very refreshing!

Sliding Rock..

Bob, Sara, little Juan, and Pablo at the top of the rock getting ready to slide down together. I don't think they realized that they would probably fall on top of each other once they reached the bottom. Pablo (who is 8) and the smallest one, is at the front of the line and would get "smushed" if he doesn't get dunked too badly.

Chilly waters...

Bob, Sara, little Juan and Pablo coming up from dropping into the nice "cool" waters of Sliding Rock. Couldn't have been too cold, as they went on again and again.