Rafting in the Creek

Yesterday as we took home one of the boys' friends we saw some people coming out of a ditch on the side of the road with rafts. We knew there was a creek there but never explored it before. I thought it looked like fun! The kids thought it looked like fun! So we convinced Ken to take us there for FHE.

We actually like to play in creeks quite a bit, Ken loves to remind of the time he left me and the boys at a park while he went to finalize our paperwork for our temporary housing here in TX. When he got back to us 30 minutes later, me and the boys were covered in muddy water from head to toe and we had to go back to the hotel and get cleaned up.

Here they are, off to explore a new creek.


Turns out this creek is just the perfect size for our family.

Rose and Ginger can walk by themselves,

And it is just deep enough for the boys to float on the raft from the top to the bridge.

As you can see there was decent enough falls to make it interesting for the boys but since the water is maybe 18" it's pretty safe for them to go alone and without a life jacket.
Away he goes!

There is a bridge at the end too, that served well as a cut-off point. But the water got pretty shallow before the bridge so they never even came close to drifting too far away.
This girls liked hopping from rocks to rocks. Rose was pretty sure of herself, but Ginger wanted to hold someone's hand most of the time.
Daddy and Rose went down the river too.
Making their way up the creek to do it all over again.
Towards the bridge at the top there was a very shallow part of the creek full of pebble type rocks and tons of shells. The girls and Nathan were pretty enthralled with collecting shells.
My cute River Rat!

Nathan was pretty obsessed about finding a clam with the muscle still in it. He found one that had half of one. Which for some reason I found in a cup of water in my dish drainer surrounded by clean dishes. Nice huh! Good thing he is so cute. Darin took me tubing for awhile. I can float about half the way but then it gets too shallow and Darin would pull me along.
Of course half the fun of creeks is throwing in rocks!


Surprisingly the girls wanted to go floating with me instead of their Daddy. I am going to look and see if I can find a smaller tube for them, then they can go by themselves next time if I walk behind them.
Ginger and Rose took the exploring part to heart. They ran up this bank and were hiding from us. And jumping off until Rose fell and scratched up her hand and knee.
It didn't take her too long to recover though Just needed a few hugs from her Dad!
It was an awesome Family Home Evening. The kids loved it so much that we are going to go back later this week with some friends!