Raging River

My Dad decided he wanted us to spend the day at the river with him since he would not be in town Fathers Day Weekend. He wanted his kids and families to be there, however my brother and his family were busy packing for the trip to Germany (wife and kids) and moving into their new house (my brother would be doing this by himself since they will be in Germany... well with our help I'm sure).

I get up Sunday morning, fix my coffee, relax for a bit, got on the computer for a bit, and even checked the weather since we would be on the river most of the day. It said something about partly cloudy with clearing skies for a mostly sunny day, about a 20% chance of rain. So it looked to be a very nice day... family, food and sunny skies. What else could you ask for!?

So I cooked the boys and I a little breakfast... hasbrowns, cheese eggs and bacon. They hardly ate any of theirs because they were ready to go. We got dressed and got our bags packed and headed out the door at 10:15. The boys wanted their football flags on their windows (Coby is an Auburn flag and Caleb's is an Alabama flag). Going down I-85 at 60 mph, I roll down Coby's window so he can throw out his gum, then rolled it back up. About a mile further I realized that Coby was trying to tell me that his flag was gone... flew off the window! He was heartbroken, so I was trying to cheer him up telling him we'd get him another and I think he finally was ok when I told him that we'd get him another one that was all orange (the one we had was navy with orange letters). I couldn't turn around and wouldn't anyways because I'm not stopping on the interstate to try to get a flag.

So we proceed to our destination... Cooters Pond. Daddy and Peggy were there with the boat already in the water. We got our stuff on the boat, then Emily and Greg got there a few minutes later. Everyone's on the boat and we're heading to our little private island on the river. We get there, set up the chairs, grill and all the stuff necessary to spend the day at the river. We get in the water... which was a little chilly, so you just have to jump in and get it over with. The sun seemed like it was trying to overpower the clouds, and did for a while. About 12:30, Peggy takes the boat back in to get Mitzi and Braeland.

Meanwhile, the radio had an emergency alert come across that there's a "severe thunderstorm warning" in the area. We are looking and can't see anything remotely serious and figure it must be bypassing us. I even look at the radar on my Sidekick and it show the storms are north and northeast of us. So we continue swimming. Daddy lights the grill to get the coals hot for when they get back. Looking north we can see the sky getting eerily dark. Its coming towards us. We look at radar again. Now there's storms west and north of us coming directly to us! Where'd they come from? The winds pick up. I make the boys get out of the water. They help grandaddy get all the toys up.

The rain starts falling.
The wind is getting stronger.
There are waves in the river... and they weren't small... it was like a freakin' ocean!

Coby is freakin' out... "mommy, I ready to go" while crying. Thunder. Lighting. An entire tree fell on the opposite side of the 'littl' island, which could have possibly hit us had it fallen our way. We finally see Peggy coming back. It's POURING by now. She passes us. She finally comes back and tells us the current took her down the river and she couldn't turn. I love storms so this wasn't bothering me, but my son was scared so that of course did bother me. We notice the rain isn't going to slack up much so we go ahead and load up the boat and head in. It slowed down somewhat and pretty much stopped by the time we go back to the docks... go figure!

The boys and I went to Aunt Emily and Uncle Gregs house to get a shower and some dry clothes on. I... being mommy... got the boys something clean and dry, but thought nothing of myself. I can wear some of Emily's clothes... except for a bra! I ended up wearing a tank top with a built in bra and it was actually pretty cute on me. We went to Dad's house to finish our day with him. Ate, enjoyed family and they gave the boys their outfits for their birthdays. They had to put them on before we left.

This was a long and eventful day!