Row Row Row

another great canoe trip! we saw a different part of the current river this year, with a much smaller group. but it was still a blast. PERFECT weather. hot during the day, so a dip in the dang cold water felt awesome! nice and cool at night so sleeping was comfortable. i love my friends. they rock! we saw a pretty cool new cave this year. missed another cuz i didnt know how to read my watch. i thought we were an hour behind, so i made everyone row row row...turns out, i had the watch on some funky setting and we were actually on time and could have stopped to see that cave. i felt really bad. :(

18 miles of canoeing that first day! whew. second day we did only 12 i think. much more relaxed.

i havent collected everyone's pictures yet, so i dont have many of me here. but imagine me, having as much fun as my friends are in these pics!!!

craziness

so, i'm a little late in posting this. but last week was nuts. i got a phone call a little after 12:30am thursday from chad, kind of wimpering. first thing he told me was he had just put his head through the window. i'm thinking cuts and blood and a messed up face. rushed to put my clothes on and get to his place. luckily his curtains had been closed so he had two tiny little abrasians but the window - TWO PANES - was completely shattered. not just cracked but shattered and mostly out of the frame! he apparently had a bad dream, jumped from one side of his king sized bed, head first into the window, and back across the king size bed to the floor before he woke up. he's ok. he was a little worried that he might do it again, but has so far been inactive in his sleep.

scary stuff.

planning and plotting

well, i didn't think i was gonna plan a canoe trip this year, but i'm gonna try now and i'm excited. a little nervous. i usually take 3 months or more to plan the trip, and i have three weeks. i hope someone has some canoes for us to rent! and i really hope chad can go. he's been really tied up and REALLY stressed at work lately. he and i both still have like 15 days of vacation to take before the end of the year, so we have time, he just might not have time, ya know?

anyway, back to planning...we've gone to the upper current river in missouri for the past 4 or 5 years. started out with a little group - 6 or 7 people. the biggest group we had was about 26! whew. this year we are going small again. and with some people who we dont know quite as well as in years past. not a problem for me. i like getting to know new people. chad is just shy sometimes. and this year, i think we are gonna do a different trip. still same general area. just a new part of the current, and maybe a little jacks fork. i'll keep ya posted.

back again

crazy isnt it? though i dont kwow how much i have to say.

just got back from a wonderful weekend on a cabin on a lake. chad and i hung out with his family in wisconsin. beautiful weather (not that 90=100 degree crap from last week).

my big news - i've accepted an assistant volleyball coaching position at a high school here in peoria. why? i dont have a clue!!! i'm scared to death and it's gonna take up SOOOO much time. and i'm scared. gotta take tests and everything. positives - it's only like 3 months and it pays. sooo, i guess we'll see how that goes.

back to work. busy monday.

for blogs sake

hmmm....i'm apparently not any good at this blogging stuff. over 6 months between blogs? yikes. but i do have excuses..no kids to report on, no wedding plans to discusss, no big life changes. yep, life is faily uneventful at the moment. no canoe trip plans, no job changes...what IS there in my life? :) chad's behaving quite well these days! mom took a much needed trip to utah to visit family. started sand volleyball about a month ago. not winning so much with my 4s team but they are OOOOH so much fun! in fact, we lost all four this week, but that might have been the funnest night yet.

ooh, i scupted a sand butt a couple weeks ago. darn should have taken a picture!

yep. that's my exciting life.

This Momentous Day

((from Dean Koontz "From the Corner of His Eye"))

Not one day in anyone's life is an uneventful day, no day without profound meaning, no matter how dull and boring it might seem, no matter whether you are a seamstress or a queen, a shoeshine boy or a movie star, a renowned philosopher or a Down's-syndrome child. Because in every day of your life, there are opportunities to perform little kindnesses for others, both by conscious acts of will and unconscious example.

Each smallest act of kindness - even in just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, a compliment that engenders a smile - reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it's passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away.

Likewise, each small meanness, each thoughtless expression of hatred, each envious and bitter act, regardless of how petty, can inspire others, and is therefore seed that ultimately produces evil fruit, poisoning people whom you have never met and never will.

All human lives are so profoundly and intricately entwined - those dead, those living, those generations yet to come - that the fate of all is the fate of each, and the hope of humanity rests in every heart and in every pair of hands.

Therefore, after every failure, we are obliged to strive again for success, and when faced with the end of one thing, we must build something new and better in the ashes, just as from pain and grief, we must weave hope, for each of us is a thread critical to the strength - to the very survival - of the human tapestry.

Every hour in every life contains such often-unrecognized potential to affect the world that the great days for which we, in our dissatisfaction, so often yearn are already with us; all great days and thrilling possibilities are combined always in THIS MOMENTOUS DAY.

Current River 2008

well we made it. back safe and sound...well mostly. a few of us picked up a bump or bruise or two but nothing requiring medical attention, thank goodness. and ALL of us had a blast! The group friday was smallest - 8 of us canoeing, but it was a pretty fun day. poor brandy and kit dumped 9 times!!! sorin and i managed 3 though i think kit caused one on purpose. all in good fun.

Friday we canoed from akers to pulltite. saturday 22 of us did 10 miles from pulltite to round spring. and the 14 of us that canoe sunday had a very relaxing day canoeing from cedar grove to akers. i am not sure which was my favorite.

we took SOOO many pictures, and i would love to post them but i jsut dont think there is enough space here. LOL i managed about 200 pictures on just my camera. and i am waiting on pictures from 4 other people.

Above is me and my coworker, Brandy. and to the left is my boyfriend, Chad! isnt he cute!!!

That is ALL! :) at least for now. just know that the trip was a blast!