The week of Xander

It is going to seem like all the posts are about Xander to start with as I catch up and well that is because they are! The first 4 weeks of summer vacation have been spent with Xander in Junior Lifeguards and completing a great deal of Boy Scout work. On June 28 and 29, Xander and I took a mother/son scouting trip whitewater rafting and kayaking on the Kern River in central Cali. We had an absolute blast and I would be in a 2 person kayak with my son any day of the week, he did a great job powering the kayak as I steered and we made it through some nice Class 3 rapids together. We also had to do river rescues where we were forced to flip the kayak and then get back in right before a set of class 3 rapids, after 2 runs down the river already in rafts, it was a bit exhausting but we managed. He also had to cook dinner for his troop and made a glorified home-made version of hamburger helper, it was actually quite tasty and got well-deserved rave reviews from the other scouts, even a few requests for the recipe. The next morning he delighted everyone with his camping specialty of delicious pancakes.

I was also one of only 3 moms on the trip of 27 people so my initiation was to swim across a very cold river into the center sandbar where all the other kids were hanging out. It took me a few minutes to get up the courage to dip into the rather breathtaking cold water but I managed, swam across and got just dry enough on the sand bar that I had to muster up that courage all over again just to go back across the river. We also had major water wars on the rafting and kayaking trips. One boat of boys thought it would be funny to buy these water pump guns and pelt us with very cold water on the duration of the first trip down the river. So between the 1st and 2nd trip, I snuck away and purchased 4 of those water soakers to provide to the others in my boat including the river guide, now it was an even fight! We even got to the point of where we were soaking innocent bystanders along the river's edge "just because", it got really dirty!! The best part was that Xander was in another raft and not mine so he was literally up a river without a paddle, er, um, I mean a water gun because our boat wasn't sharin'!

I wish I would have brought a waterproof camera because none of us were able to capture any photos from the trip but we sure do have some great memories! I can't wait until next year's trip, maybe we'll let Bob come on the next one, maybe!