Oh my...the drama continues!

First, I must preface this with a statement: None of my family knows about this blog. I haven't even given the address to Ethan yet. I will...just not yet. Anyway, I just wanted you all to know since they don't have it they won't be offended by this post!

There seems to be a flair for the drama in my family. Usually its just plain funny and I love it. At times it gets extreme. What happened with my sister this weekend is made even more funny by my dad's recent escapade. He is now a world traveler. Why you might ask? Well, he flew for the first time in over 30 yrs. Yep...from Stockton to Las Vegas. Its about an hour and ten minutes. I'm pretty sure once you level off its time to go back down. Basically, my mom said he sat motionless the whole time, holding onto the magazines for dear life. When my mom wanted to read her magazine it was out of the question. Then the day they came back he took the longest nap ever...for his jetlag. That's right ladies and gentlemen...welcome to my family!

Saturday we went rafting down Cache Creek. Its an irrigation channel with at least one Class 3 rapid. It is a nice way to get back into the game, since we leave later this week to raft in Oregon with 4+ rapids. The Oregon trip is guided. Cache Creek is 2 people in a raft, no guide. This was my third time. 2 friends from college plus their husbands went, along with my sister and brother. I am not even sure if I can do the story justice. A Lifetime Channel movie may be in the works already.

Picture 2 people who have never rafted before (sister & brother). There was a lot of arguing and rafting backwards. We tried to help and give pointers. My sister said my brother was "acting like dad." My brother said my sister was "giving up too easy or would only paddle for a minute, then stop." Major communication issues. We had already stopped for lunch, and numerous other times to dump the rafts. You tend to take in a lot of water during the rapids and cannot stear properly with a raft full of water.

We had just gotten back in the rafts and things seemed to be going well. Eddie and Lisa actually went into a rapid facing forward! Then I saw something red fall out of the raft....that would be my sisters visor...that she was still wearing! We were behind them, a ways back. Usually they were slow and we wanted to give them some time before we caught up with them. From where we were it looked like she was grabbing onto the raft. That is a big no no. She panicked and forgot all of the instructions.

I heard her screaming, which I took as a good sign. She wasn't screaming that she was hurt. She was just scared. When she finally moved away from the raft she was facing upstream...not a good idea. We were all yelling for her to face her legs downstream and ride out the rest of the rapid. That is the safest thing to do. Mind you, we are screaming this while negotiating ourselves through a rapid. She is crying, saying she is dieing. Yes...she might have been the first person to drown with a life jacket on. She also keeps telling me she doesn't know how to swim. Now, our mom sent us for private swim lessons for years so mom had some issues with that!

Basically, she was fighting the current and fighting her jacket by trying to swim instead of floating down. Had she followed the directions we received at the beginning of the trip, all of this would have lasted less than 1 minute. It was less than 100 yrds. But, she preferred to scream and face the wrong way, basically sitting in a rapid that is throwing her around. As I am trying to help her, I feel like she really thinks I don't WANT to help her...like I'm ignoring her which totally hurts my feelings. Once it was safe, my superman husband swam to her and brought her over to our raft. She wanted to quit and we said no. Ethan and my brother had to hike back and find her missing paddle, then my supermana husband piloted her the rest of the trip, while I rafted with my brother.

She already told him that he saved her life and now we are planning the movie. Lisa will be played by Sandra Bullock. I will be played by Reese Witherspoon. Ethan wants to be Vin Diesel, and my brother = George Clooney! I have to say I'm not upset she was scared, just that she wouldnt listen when we tried to help her. And when I pointed out to her she wasn't dieing if she could talk she even gave me a dirty look! After the initial fall out of the raft she never went under once. I knew that if I babied her she wouldn't finish the trip. And to give her some props, she did finish...with the biggest rapid ahead....MOTHER. Eddie and I went down backwards...I'm starting to think it was the raft cuz I know what I'm doing and we couldn't get our raft to go straight for nothin.

Ethan was a hero, along with another guy who helped Eddie and I get off a rock. We had been there at least 5 minutes and were taking on water, and the whole group was ahead of us. 2 kayakers stopped and tried to help by telling me to hold on to their oar. I'm pretty sure they were trying to kill me, but I tried. Didn't work. Then all of a sudden another superman shows up. He worked for the company we rafted with. He was all alone which would have scared me to death! He manuevered the rapid we were stuck, pulled over, ran on the banks to us, jumped in the water, had us both sit in the front and pushed us off. He jumped into the back of the raft and just as we were gonna ask for guidance he jumped out, and back to his raft he swam. HE ROCKS.

And after all of this excitement, Ethan and I (fools as my sister calls us) are heading to Oregon on Friday to do it all over again!

Pictures from the top:

#1 - Lisa and I at the end...see, she is fine

#2 -my sister excited, before we started

#3 - Ethan and Lisa

#4 - Ethan and I