Calapooia

July 30th my mom, Andrea, Ben, Sis. Michele, Cheree, and I went to the Calapooia river. It was in the 90's so it was a perfect day to go swimming.

We met up at Sis. Michele's house to get everything packed into her van and we drove to the river with them. There are different places to swim there and the most popular place to swim there is the big beach-like area. We don't really swim there though because there is a lot of drinking going on there. So we went to this "secret spot" that we usually go to. It used to be secret, but now a lot of people know of it so it's not so secret anymore.

After we set everything up we got in the water right away cause it was really hot. Cheree brought her two boogie boards. One is Wolverine, and the other is the Hulk. She always has the Wolverine one and everyone else gets the Hulk.

There were some people there when we got there, but they were kind of funny. This one teenaged boy would ask his mom to take pictures of him jumping into the water with his sister. For some reason he thought it looked really cool, when really, it doesn't look that great lol. He wasn't doing anything special like a flip, just jumping in. Their mom kind of reminded me of Sigourney Weaver (how she looked)

My mom and Sis. Michele talking.

That boy kept talking to me and Cheree.

That is Ben. He is heading for the rapids. Those rapids are kind of dangerous though because you can't really control yourself in the water since it moves fast and there are big rocks everywhere. Years ago when we had Camp Reed, Bro. Steve, Bro. Ray, and Bro. Craig took all of us kids to the rapids and there's a spot where you can stop and don't have to go down the crazy rapids part, but Kacia accidentally ran into me and I went down the rapids backwards. Bro. Steve said I was doing a bunch of flips underwater. When I got out I had 5 really long cuts on my right leg.

Beyond those rocks is the big beach area.

Those are the other people that were there. There's a little island where you can climb up onto and there's some little rapids that are kind of lame, but more fun to go down on a boogie board. There is also more water when you go past the little island where we would swim sometimes.

You can see it a little better here.

In this picture Ben, Cheree, and I were drowning while our mom's just chat away.

Cheree, Andrea, and Ben walked over to the big beach area to swim for a little while. I stayed with the mom's cause I don't really like the area as much.

When they came back we got out to eat lunch. While I was eating this boy was with his mom and he was standing up on this rock but looked kind of tall. He saw me looking at them and said to me, "I'm not really this tall" then he swam up to me and stood up and said, "look how tall I am!" he had a proud smile on. I was just like, "uh huh."

Right here Ben is eating cookies while getting into the chips.

Right after lunch we got back in the water.

Those are the little rapids that are fun to go down on the boogie boards.

Sometime after lunch, Cheree, Andrea, Ben, and I went to the beach area again. It was fun though, but it was also a little weird because there was this older guy (I'd say in his 50's or something) he kept on staring at me and Cheree. He'd smile a lot at us too, then it looked like he was kind of swimming in our direction. Cheree and I would be kind of humming like, "mm-mm-mm-mm" The kind of hum like, "let's get away." It was kind of creepy. But it was fun though cause it was a bigger area to swim in. We eventually went back to the other area where we stayed at.

Around 6:00, 6:30, or 7:00 my dad, Matt, and Jeff came to meet us here after work. Jeff and Matt went swimming for a while. Oh yeah, and this is the day before Matt left for Idaho.

Ben and I swam towards the rapids (the more dangerous ones) cause we were bored. The rapids were kind of pulling us in and we were trying to get away cause we didn't want to go down them. It took forever to get away since it's so strong. I swallowed a bunch of water on accident and started choking a lot, hahaha.

My dad called us for dinner, we had a BBQ.

Cheree wanted to go back to the beach area after dinner so her, Ben, Matt, Andrea, Jeff, and I walked back over there. This time only a couple was there but they were just testing this machine that pans for gold that the guy made. Cheree asked him, "it's not going to blow up, right?" he laughed and said, "of course it is!" Just kidding lol.

We swam for a while there then my dad whistled for us and we packed up to go home. I drove home with Cheree and Sis. Michele, everyone else drove home in our van. We got home around 11:00 pm.

It is Lukas's birthday today, so Happy Birthday!