Family Time!

I promised pictures from my (Jenny) family's visit a couple weeks ago and I just haven't gotten around to posting them since Ben is in the throes of thesis-writing at the moment and we only have one computer. So, finally, they are in a slide show that you can click on below. Enjoy! We had a lot of fun, with the highlights being: my dad's 50th birthday celebration (no pictures of that in the slide show, though), fishing, Yorktown, fishing, and more fishing. We also went to York River State Park and not only fished but also caught a variety of other creatures, including a giant alligator snapping turtle and an eel (I caught that one!). We also went kayaking and THAT was VERY interesting, so I’ll tell that story in detail in case you’re interested. (Scroll down below the slide show to read it.)

The idea to go kayaking was mine, and I kept telling everyone what great fun it was—Ben and I did it once last summer and had a grand time. My dad, perhaps the smartest of us, opted out of this excursion. So anyway, fast forward to the middle of the journey down the creek: My little brother (er, big brother who is younger), Daniel, was doing quite well gliding along in his solo kayak, while my mom and I were together in a tandem kayak, and Ben and Matthew in a third kayak. So far, the only issue was that we were all pretty bad at steering and were basically “serpentining” down the creek rather than gliding along straight. But, no big deal—we were still enjoying ourselves.

All of a sudden we hear this huge "SPLASH!" No one saw it happen, but my mom and I turn around and there is Daniel NOT in his kayak, trying to grab onto the side of the kayak and pull himself up from the muddy creek (which was, by the way, full of water snakes and other fun critters that you don't want your bare skin exposed to!). Finally we realized he simply could not get into his kayak again because it was, by then, filled to the brim with water and too heavy for any of us to dump it out without also capsizing. So, with much care, he somehow got himself into my mom's and my kayak without dumping the two of us out, while we meanwhile hung onto his kayak so it didn't float downstream. At that point, as we were juggling multiple oars and an extra kayak, plus a wet Daniel hanging over the edge, we realized it was too precarious to both tug Daniel’s kayak and have him in our boat while rowing back to shore. So, Matthew and Ben got the fun task of getting the extra kayak back to shore. Meanwhile, my mom and I rowed at full speed back to the dock so we could deposit Daniel and then go back and check on Matthew and Ben (we weren’t sure if they were going to make it). Upon getting to shore, we discovered his wallet and cell phone were both in his pockets, and while the contents of the wallet eventually dried, the cell phone was ruined and wouldn’t ever turn on again. Meanwhile, his brand-new shoes that he was wearing for the first time were soiled and also ruined!! Anyway, at that point, my mom and I were solely focused on getting back to Matthew and Ben to make sure they were okay (apparently it’s easy to capsize oneself if one’s balance gets thrown off…). Fortunately, they were fine, and we all ended up back on shore a full 10 minutes ahead of when our kayaks were due back to the state park people. Needless to say, I’m not sure how eager Daniel will be to go kayaking again. Unfortunately we didn't get pictures of this fun experience either (but then, if we had, the camera would probably be somewhere back in the York River right about now…). So, that was probably one of the biggest excitements during their trip.