I spent last weekend on a boy scout canoe trip. Hub got to stay home alone, kind of a late Father’s Day gift.
I wasn’t worried about taking both kids rolling on the river, since I had previous canoe training that involved going around buoys, getting flipped and swimming in my clothes… when I was an 11 year old.
(Scout)
Unfortunately, since then most of my canoe experience has come from the viewing of cartoons. I was ready to sing my heart out and avoid picking up any sort of raccoon or cebu hop ons.
My daughter and I were the 1st canoe that capsized,
-we’re probably going to need a few of these- 
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But we were far from the last, which was oddly comforting.
I got some tough looking bruises and scrapes out of it though and a new phrase, prayer swear, that describes a paradoxical combination of words that may fly from your mouth involuntarily in the face of imminent doom!:)
We were actually mugged by THIS harmless looking, evil tree:
It punched me in the jaw and took both our sunglasses, a paddle and the kid’s water bottle. Thankfully the camera, advil, etc… where in a ziploc belted to the boat, so I was still able to get this after picture: 
Fortunately, we were rescued by Eagle Scouts. I tell ya, nothing beats travelling with an entourage of Boy Scouts.
You know, because they’re just so trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, er… sneezy, happy, gassy… well, no one’s perfect
The rest of the day went a little smoother… after I grabbed somebody who actually knew what they were doing to tell me everything they know about canoeing.
Still, if we got close to anything, my daughter would just yell, “help! my mom doesn’t know what she’s doing!!”
I told her to stop attracting attention…
Pretty sure I saw a small child being towed behind a tube in an inflatable cooler.
Also, we had a group of young ladies/river sirens, whose conversation was very colorful, that got started right around the same time we did, (9a.m. / Happy Hour).
They sported an impressive array of patriotic bikinis, which was perfect since we were rolling with a bunch of 11 to 17 year old boys.
So, my son had opted out of co-canoeing with me and sis and went with other canoe buddies (that didn’t capsize immediately).
Probably a good thing in the end. I think our kids, right now, sharing a canoe might have been a bad idea at best… at worst degenerated pretty quickly into a full on Dr. Seuss situation… kind of a paddle battle, puddle muddle. Although, if I remember right, that one took place in a bottle.
anyway,
She’s so cute! It wasn’t easy all day trying to line her up with all those low hanging trees.
The canoeing definitely wears them out though. Most of the kids end up looking like this:
Of course, I ended up looking a little more like this:
This might need a better story … I cut off the Haskin’s Canoe provoking Nanette’s River Rage. That and all the hot sun and moonshine of the day precipitated the yelling of some heavily accented challenges, “Kiss My Country …” Things quickly escalated, gauntlets (I mean coozies) were thrown and I blacked out after she hit me with a banjo. Yeah, that’s why you should always keep your life jacket on 
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