Hold up! Wait a minute! Put a little love in it!

Hi!

My weekend is off to quite a start.

Okay, no forced exclamation point heavy enthusiasm this time, but still.

I don't know. I'm actually pretty tired right now. Yesterday was caregroup, and in addition to some great worship and prayer and discussion, we had a good time. I helped make strawberry shortcake (You're not off the hook, jello, I shall defeat you yet!!). I don't know, I'm sure there is lots and tons I could talk about, but I'm finding it hard to remember everything. Mostly now I remember looking at Chad's buggy pictures, and Jeremy being way to friendly with the touching and making me yell really loud at Village Inn.

And...sprinklers. I ran through the sprinklers right before I got in my car to leave. That was pretty sweet.

So. Why am I so tired you ask?

Well...it all started this morning when I woke up. Yup. I woke up this morning. I admit it. And not only that, I woke up before six!! I got like four or five hours sleep, I think, maybe more. I didn't get to sleep until late because there was a big old crowd of people in my house when I got there, and I needed to make sure they all left before I went to bed.

So yeah, leadership class, my last one. This means I may be able to stay out later on some fridays, when my dad's in town to close up the house anyways. Um, I may not be making sense. We have caregroup at our house, a singles caregroup, every friday, but I attend a different caregroup, one I've been going to for, gosh, three years now. So I need to be home by eleven when my dad is up at work(he's a firefighter in summit county, he works solid 48 hour shifts).

Blah blah blah. I don't feel like I'm making sense, nor am I sure why I explain this.

Moving on.

Then.

We had our men's meeting, as is pretty typical for a Saturday. There were just four of us today, me (duh), Jared, Asher and Nate. We talked. We ate cereal. Nate showed us a bug he caught.

Then.

We cleaned the church, Jared, Eric and I. (Jared and I had quite a day...)

I vacuumed!

I sang out loud and didn't realize someone could hear me!

I washed windows!

I moved furniture!

I went home and tried in vain to get ahold of Nate Fopma!

Then.

TUBING.

This part of the day was rather crazy. Those faint of heart may want to skip this part.

First, Jared, Jon La Bass, Nate and I gathered at Jared's place. (Not that Nate, a third one.) We then carried inner tubes on a good like hike through Golden. Golden's pretty sweet. I love it up there, lots of beautiful mesas (or plateus, if you speak french, oui oui) reaching into the sky all around.

The river, I'm told, was quite a bit higher than normal. Nothing I was told as we hiked through town and out to a river outside the city could curb my enthusiasm to tube. This is generally my way. I get excited about stuff and jump in feetfirst. Or headfirst, it really doesn't matter until you land. I was also told there was quite a bit of runoff, and that if you aren't careful, you can get sucked under, get your foot stuck, and drown.

Naturally, I didn't care. I was in. That's all that mattered.

So naturally, when we hike quite a ways along this path, and I'm told we can hike higher to an even crazier area than is generally advisable, I'm in. Let's do it. And yet, before we can even get up there, as we're crossing a little outlet with some VERY fast moving water, I lose my footing and my tube. The footing I got back without slipping, the tube I did not.

The stupid current got a hold of it, and before any of us could do anything, it was gone. I took off running, but I couldn't keep up before my feet started to get torn up by gravel and generally rough terrain. Apparently Jared has feet of steel, because he took off running after I went back for sandals and beat me down, which rather shocked me, I've always thought of myself as having very tough feet. I probably should have just run through the pain. Then running on gravel wouldn't even bother me anymore. Oh well, hindsight. I'll save charging like a lunatic over painfully sharp rocks for next time.

Eventually, Jared managed to find the inner tube. Apparently someone stopped it and gave it to a little kid, and then Jared got it from the little child. And then I showed up just in time to walk back uphill to the launch point for the tubes.

After that, we decided we weren't ready for the crazy area, and just jumped into standard launch point.

Which was quite enough!

The water was SO SO SO COLD.

Seriously, it felt like rolling around in snow, like electricity running through me. I couldn't believe as I started to get going that I was about to spend a very long time in it. Part of me was instantly happy, since I was a fish in a past life, but the cold was quite a shock.

And I had no tubing knowledge save a handful of random tips from Jared and Nate. I'd never gone tubing before(part of the reason for my eagerness) so I didn't really know how to steer or anything. Stear. No, it's steer. Which is fine, really. All part of the adventure. I like jumping in and figuring things out as I go, flying by the seat of your swimming trunks or whatever.

But the rapids, that's where it got insane.

At first, while the going was smooth, I was just trying to learn how to stay upright in my tube (something that takes more practice than you'd think). I fell out almost right away and hit bottom. This was nothing. Cold but excited I climbed back in, eager for whatever was ahead.

But I wasn't really ready when I hit my first wave. I don't know what could have prepared me for such a thing. It's just one second your floating along, the next you're sucked spinning into a jetstream, trying to catch your breath and stay on.

The staying on I struggled with all the way down. I would fall off, get dragged along by my tube, then struggle to get back on without losing the tube. I got completely submerged more than once. It was pretty awesome and exhilarating, and I rather loved it, until I reached a point where I just could not get back on my tube. The current was so fast, I couldn't get it back under me, and I couldn't let it go without risking losing another tube, so I clung on tight while it dragged me over the rocks in some really nasty areas and got some pretty sweet bruises.

And I couldn't stop!

It's really difficult to gain purchase underwater, and when I finally decided I had to get out before I got myself killed, I wound up just still getting dragged along in the shallows, until I finally managed to wedge myself between a few rocks, and then I couldn't get out of the water without losing the tube (not easily anyways) and this kind woman helped me out at this point, and I dropped my tube and all but collapsed into the grass. My limps were bright red and so numb I couldn't feel anything but pins and needles. I felt like a bundle of sticks, arms and legs barely working.

After a few seconds, I worked up some strength and got moving to find my fellow tubers. Jon wound up not lasting much longer than me. When we all met up again, he and I could not stop chattering. I've never actually felt my teeth chatter before. It wasn't until a little later that I realized I wasn't actually cold, which is according to my mom, the beginning of hypothermia. I automatically assumed, since I was shaking and my teeth were chattering, I must be cold.

The Mines portion of our group(four guys at this point) wanted to go back in, but Jon and I, being all but immobilized, were somewhat reluctant. Jon, to my surprise, went back in. I wanted to, but I couldn't. I didn't feel like I could swim, I was shaking so bad. Which is pretty out of character for me. I'm usually the last to quit everything. Oh well, at least I didn't die. It was all very humbling, really. I spent a lot of my time in the water at the river's mercy. It made me realize how frail human beings are in the grand scheme of things. I can't even get myself out of a river when I want, and yet God can make the river, control the river, and even get me safely out of it! Amazing stuff.

So I wound up waiting a little bit, and then we hugged some bronze fish that helped us warm up, or it helped everyone else warm up. I started to get leg cramps...

Um, so! My first tubing adventure! It was quite a bit of fun. And very humbling. I need to work out more. Yes, I said it. I do. If I'm going to do risky stuff like this, especially eagerly, then I need to be strong enough to get myself out of sticky situations. And I do love doing stuff like river rafting. I can't wait to go again. Hopefully it'll be warmer next time.But if not, oh well. Toughening up is always good! I want to go up further and try out the "crazy area".

Anyways, after that we chilled at Jared's, warming up. I tried earl gray tea, and we played ping pong and made french toast, and it was lovely. I'd talk more, but people are wanting to use this computer, so I'm getting off. I've already blabbed enough anyways! Later llamas!