11th Anniversary!

Yesterday was our anniversary and we were blessed to find sitters for ALL THREE KIDS! Beth watched Rachel and Heather watched Aaron and Summer - Thanks guys!!


Anyway, we went to the United States National Whitewater Center for a rafting trip down the largest man-made river. Check it out at http://www.usnwc.org/. Ken and I have rafted several times before, but it was my first time on a man-made river.


I was a little disappointed that the water wasn't cooler. It was very warm - due to the temps being in the 100s this past week!! It was still tons of fun. I'd say the highlight of the experience was falling in the water when our raft flipped over! Now, this was a first for me! Not a typical situation, but our guide was trying some extreme things with us. Ken was rescued right away as he was closet to the rope that was thrown at us. I mistakenly assumed that only one person could be pulled in at a time, or else I would also have grabbed on. Instead, me and the other 5 members of our crew (the guide was able to stay with the raft, upright it, and raft down to the lake are) careened down the river through the remaining rapids until we reached the lake. I immediately assumed the safety position that I had been taught, but until now had never had to use. It worked pretty well, but going through the rapids with no raft is kind of scary. I got what I like to refer to as a "nasal enema". I was glad to have reached the lake and felt kind of proud of myself. When I got there I saw another one of my crew mates and he and I were rescued by another raft. We floated around until we found our own raft with all but Ken onboard. He was on the side of the river, walked down into the lake and got on another raft. That raft delivered him to us.


Well, needless to say, we were very hungry after our raft trip! We were going to eat at the restaurant at the center, but it wasn't as nice as we thought. It was more of a cafeteria type restaurant. Totally NOT where you'd want to eat for your anniversary... So we went to my new favorite, ON THE BORDER! I got steak tacos and they were SOOOOO good! Ken got some burrito thing... whatever... Then the manager came over and gave us a coupon for a FREE dessert since we had to wait so long. Thing is, we didn't think we had to wait long at all. I guess it's because we were enjoying our conversation so much - something we aren't used to when being surrounded by the kiddos. We were going to get dessert anyway (of course) but it was a nice surprise not having to pay for it. We ordered the chocolate empanadas and again, YUM!



So, we had a really super great day!! Sorry we don't have any pics, but again, you can visit the whitewater website at http://www.usnwc.org/.