"I got canoed," said Josiah!

We went canoeing this past weekend and it was an adventure that none of us will soon forget . The boys planned the trip, the first mistake of the day. We didn't actually put our canoes into the water until 4:30pm. 2nd mistake. As we were pushing out, Dan was going to put OFF on, but forgot and in turn forgot to zip up the dry bag. 3rd mistake. Dan, Josiah, Buster and I were all in the same canoe...4th and biggest mistake. We tipped our canoe 30 minutes into the trip. It was out of nowhere and at the fastest point in the river. I panicked, but was able to grab a hold of Josiah and Buster. I didn't realize that he could swim, so I was trying to hold onto both of them, which was fine until the bottom of the river disappeared. That is when I totally panicked. I finally let go of Buster and hoped that he would be ok. I was then able to hold onto Josiah and grab onto the canoe that Dan was able to grab when we tipped. The water was freezing to boot, which is probably what made the tip so much scarier, because it took time to get our bearings and what not. The river was moving so fast that it was very difficult to get to the side bank, but we finally did. Everyone was ok :) However the dry bag that didn't get closed up, tipped over and all the keys dumped out along with all of our towels and dry clothing. Luckily we were canoeing with 2 other guys and they were able to rescue Buster and all of our stuff. They even had two semi dry towels. Once Buster jumped in their canoe (which he really didn't want to have anything to do with, but finally jumped in), a whole bunch of water came with him and got a lot of their stuff wet too. But we were thankful for the dry towels. Dan made a campfire in record time and we were able to dry off a bit there and eat our food, which thankfully was in the other canoe. The guys went over to where the dry bag had tipped over, because it had floated upright down the river quite a ways until it hit some branches and tipped over and capsized. After many attempts and 3 guys looking for the keys, all 3 pair were recovered. After we mostly dried out, we headed down the river, but by this point it was 6:00 and we still had 3 1/2 hours to go. I was freezing and pissed off by the end of that trip. The boys had to keep stopping to go pee. Their crotches were soaked and kept having the feeling to pee, so every 15 minutes towards the end we were stopping and by that point, I was so cold I couldn't feel my fingers. I was wearing only my swimsuit, because everything else was wet and I gave Josiah my t-shirt so that he didn't have to wear the life jacket cold against his body. He also got both towels, because we needed to keep him warm. The rest of the trip both Josiah and Buster whimpered and were scared. I was pretty scared too actually. Every time we leaned a little I tensed up. I tried to be brave to keep Josiah calm, but by the end, I had very little energy left in my: P It was 55 degrees out by the time we pulled in at 9:30pm We completed our adventure all very cold, but intact and we only lost a few things. Never again will I go on a canoe trip that 2 boys planned :)

If you ask Josiah about the trip, he will tell you that we tipped. His original response to that question was that we got "canoed". I thought that was hilarious and thought we should make him a shirt that says "I got canoed on the Manistee River" If you ask him if he ever wants to go in a canoe again, he will tell you NO. We were all pretty tramatized to say the least. But we had a great time on Sunday, spending a leizurly day by the water. Dan's friend invited us up to stay at his Aunt's cabin. And it was such a nice cabin, I kind of wish we had just stuck around and hung out at the cabin all weekend, instead of driving all over creation to go canoeing. But that is life! The adventure has happened and we have a story to tell. I wonder how long Josiah will remember that adventure.