Fun in Grace

To unwind after what happened in Utah, we visited Jerry's parents in Grace, Idaho so that Jerry could attend the funeral of a close friend of his grandfather's (relaxing, yes?). Jerry had spent countless hours playing gopher for the two men in their dutch oven business years ago, so he simply had to attend the funeral. Then, just for old times' sake, that night his grandpa was cooincidentally having a dutch oven party at his house... so Jerry was recruited to help out again.
While Jerry went to the funeral, though, the rest of us hung out at the local reservoir with Jerry's dad's canoe.

First, Jerry's dad, Jerry Sr. (hereinafter "grandpa") and Jerry's mom, Yvette ("grandma") took David and Connor out for a short ride. They had some troubles when both boys would lunge to the same side of the boat at the same time, but made it back in safely enough.



Then grandpa and I went out with Brennen, who had lots of fun dragging his hand in the water (that particular picture is quite unflattering for mommy and got cencored) and looking at the ducks. Grandpa had a migraine wearing at him, but was still strong and valiant, making up for my inexperience and general wimpiness.


After lunch, David and Connor wanted to learn to paddle the canoe, so grandpa went out again with David first, taking Brennen as a ride-a-long.



Brennen sat still for awhile, but then, just as David was leaning out to paddle on the left, Brennen decided to change sides of the boat and practically dove to the left to plant his hands in the water. The result is predictable:



Grandma and I had been walking along behind the canoe with Connor and, after a moment of shock, we ran toward the boat until we were stopped by a barbed wire fence surrounding a farmer's field. Since I had nothing helpful to do, I took pictures.



Grandpa (hereinafter Super Grandpa) was a true hero. Though he couldn't stop the canoe from capsizing, he had both boys back in the swamped metal tub before mommy and grandma could panic too much on the bank (though not before the two drowned rats could get the fright of their lives). He even saved all the paddles, hats, and glasses. Super Grandpa pulled his knee swimming the canoe to shore, but still got both scared and wet boys to the bank safely. Grandma, Connor, and I climbed past the barbed wire to meet him and collect the tiny swimmers, then Connor actually decided to help Super Grandpa paddle the canoe back to the dock while grandma and I walked his traumatized and shivering brothers back by land.


Alas, I took no pictures of Connor's uneventful journey, being finally able to do something helpful: drag two small soaked boys across the field, through the fence, and into the truck, where we could get them into something dry.
David has declared that he will never, never, never get into a canoe again, but daddy and Super Grandpa have told him that he most certainly will, too! When queried, Brennen responded in the negative about his own prospects of ever canoeing again--but we think he'll forget all this ever happened. (He won't be able to read this blog post for years.)


Oh, and we have a new rule: when canoeing, a 50/50 adult/child ratio (or better) is an absolute requirement!