Disneyland

We were so lucky this year for Spring Break.  Grandpa and Grandma H took us all to Disneyland!

I think they mostly took pity on Paige who has desperately wanted to go to Disneyland for years....but has a dad who isn't very hip on the idea!;)

This was our kid's first ride on an airplane, and this alone was excitement enough!



  We flew into Long Beach.  This was where I was born and not too far from where we lived.  We went on a drive to see the old house.   14 or 15 U-turns later...we found it!  Things have changed!

 

The beach was one of our first stops.  I think we could live there.  Just out on the sand, next to the water full time!

Tea cups

Darren chose the Senior Citizen tea cup.....sorry mom and dad.   Not into spinning, he said.

 I turned 40 at Disneyland!

Paige would not stop riding Autopia.  Each of us had a turn taking her....over and over and over again.

 

We had so much fun at Disneyland, even Darren admitted it was way better than he ever thought it would be!

We loved California Screamin', and Star Tours was a blast!  We waited in line forever for Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, and it was sooo dumb.  We like the Haunted Mansion.

We went on Tower of Terror, and that is exactly what it is!  Can't decide if I liked that or not.  I screamed A LOT.

I still crave Disneyland Churros!  MMMMM!

We had a hotel right across the street which worked awesome for coming and going as we pleased.

Besides the beach we went to Sea World and La Jolla beach.

Darren and I both thought that all the fast walking and standing in lines was way more exhausting than riding 100 miles on our bikes!

 

What a great family memory! 

 



We're Pathetic

Justin was on a double date.  They came over to do the zipline.  No explanation needed.

Lower Salmon August 2012

 

Lower Salmon to the Confluence of the Snake. 

 

We decided we could make our own reality TV show called the "Ducky Wars."

Oh love love love 







Justin keeping Josie on track while she was on the oars.
Scott brought an extra boat so Josie and the kids could get oaring experience.  We kept it light and they had a blast on it.   Nothing happens by chance, it was meant to be that we had an extra boat  (this is foreshadowing).


Paige made a new best friend for the week.

At home behind the oars.

Derigged at the confluce.  Waiting for the jet boat.

 

 

 

 

 

 Side surfing at Kelly's Whitewater park in Cascade.  It's a tradition to stop here on our way to the put in for the Lower Main.

Paige making sure Max gest to the shore.  She is such a good kid. 



If more girls did more of this, the world would be a better place:)



Paige crawled out and made Darren jump first.  We never thought she'd do it, but finally




 

She did!!!





 

So did I, but HOLY CRAP it was scary getting out there!  

 This picture deserves the story....
We are in the tent just waking up and hear rustling nearby.  Pete is waking Justin and Brady, who had slept under the stars just outside our tent.  "Hey, your dad's boat is gone."  I hear this, but don't give it any thought. The night before we had sat around the campfire talking about all the pranks the guys have played on each other over the years on river trips....."No, I'm serious, it's missing,"  Pete is saying.
More rustling.  "Dad, your boat's gone." 
"I thought about that during the night...."  Darren says.  "Justin, run up river and see if they tied it around the corner." 
They have to be messing with us, but I can tell that Darren only half thinks so.
We camped at a huge eddy, but an IK had been tied up to the back of our boat.  Tug, tug, tug all night long and off goes the IK and the boat.
Justin runs up river, nothing.  So he runs down river, scuttles up some rocks, looks long and hard. Nothing.
The reality sets in, the boat has gotten loose.  How long ago?  How far could it have gone?  It is nowhere to be seen around the next corner and all the way down the next canyon. 
I am laughing, Darren is not.  An hour later I am not laughing, I am actually searching my soul to see if there is braveness in there...

In  hurried frenzy Darren and Justin, aka Lewis and Clark, pictured above, set off on a boat finding adventure. Would we see them later that day?  How far could have boat have gone?  Would it be flipped?  We don't tie anything down at night. 

The extra boat.  We have never had an extra boat on a trip. Yay!  For an extra boat. We haven't been loading it with anything heavy, so there is plenty of space for all the gear that would normally have been put on the missing boat - kitchen box, table, tent, all our dry bags, water, etc. 
Happy about the extra boat so I can get our stuff down the river without having to somehow fit all of that on the other already burdened boats. But...

Justin is the only one who didn't hook his lifejacket to the boat that night.  He had carefully tucked it down in his kayak.  Darren borrowed Scott's one and only extra lifejacket. That means Brady, Paige, Donna (Darren's 73 yr old mother), and I don't have lifejackets.
  Not too far downriver are the big rapids. Snow Hole. 
Two lifejackets are produced.  Donna and Paige are covered.  I had realized this a while ago.  That for sure I wouldn't have one. Which is fine....except for Snow Hole!
 As I was trying to shove down breakfast I was producing an article for the paper....."Ironman swimmer drowns...." So ironic that it just might happen.  Sorry to be so dramatic, but that is exactly how I was feeling! 

I borrow extra straps from others and Brady and I begin rigging the boat.  I am shaking inside.  I can handle a boat with this much gear on it, but I want it as light as possible becuase of one thing - Snow Hole!! with no life jacket.  Brady also has no lifejacket.  That worries me even more. Snow Hole is a fun rapid, but has a definite hole that gets bigger as the river drops.  The river is extra low.   Snow hole is just shallow and nasty filled with rocks.  So this is the soul searching part.

I am going through the motions of running straps through dry bags and around dry boxes.  Inside I am thinking how really there is no other choice but to just do this.  There is no one else in the group to take this boat.  The boat has to go downriver.  Darren is not here, nor will he be coming back.  I start to get mad at him.  Why didn't we think to leave Justin with me?  I trust him more oaring through the rapids than I trust myself.  I wouldn't be half as nervous without a lifejacket if he were oaring.  But it was up to me.  Somehow I seem to find myself in these situations where I just have to dig in, there really was no other choice. 
So looking back, this all seems so dramaish....but in reality I didn't know when or where we would find the other boat and Darren. This river is really not a big, scary river. But I was responsible to get this boat and Brady through the rapids and neither of us had a lifejacket.
All rigged, we send Paige and Donna to get on other boats.  As we set off Donna says that I should take her lifejacket, that she is old and can die, that I am young.  OH more drama!  NO I am not taking your lifejacket. 
So off we go.  Brady and I oar into the current and just look at each other.  "Well, it's just you and me bud." We talk about how we would handle swimming a rapid without a lifejacket. 

OK enough about not having a lifejacket.  We oar around the corner.  No Darren and boat.  We oar through a long, flat, section of river.  How in the world did the boat get down this?  We come to another corner.....a long canyon, no boat.  Crap.  More slow flat water.  If the boat got through this, it must have gotten loose early in the night and who knows how far it is!
Next corner....waaaay down there, a tiny blue speck.  The boat!   Relief!!!
What took us so long?  Darren and Justin want to know.  They decide they will do this more often,  they didn't have to take down tents, clean up breakfast, load boats.

I will live another day.  :)

Darren will never live down the fact that he didn't tie his boat up good enough.  Darren, of all people.  He is the total go to guy on the river.  Funny thing, everytime since, even on other river, Justin goes over and ties Darren's boat to his own.

 

Table doubles as diving board  I actually did a small stint on my high school diving team.  It's true!  It came naturally because of my gymnastics training.  That was the year I got mono and hurt my wrist... so it was just a short stint.

On the last night we camped right below the confluence on the Salmon and Snake rivers.  Across the river is Oregon.  Oregon was burning.  We watched as this barely crept up over the ridge, and quickly started burning down the mountain toward the river.  We sat in lawn chairs and watched with more intensity than we would the most suspenseful movie at a theatre. The smoke was overwhelming.  We didn't feel in danger.  There was a huge river in between the fire and us.  The jet boat company that was to pick us up the next morning would be aware of the fire and know that we were there.  But Wow!  We saw a bear that was obviously fleeing the fire and had come all the way down to the river.  Darren and the boys slept outside the tent with baby wipes over their mouth and nose.  Sometime in the middle of the night the wind shifted and the fire seemed to stagnate, the smoke went the other direction.

 

Exciting trip to say the least!

Family Pics in Provo

The Harrison clan, minus Steve, deceased in 1998, age 24.
Never get used to saying that. 

 

 

 

 

 

 



He loves me



 Harrison grandchildren

My youngest brother Clayton, his wife Lauren, and their littles.

 Mom and Dad

Best parents in the whole world

Couldn't love them more

Ryan, and his wife Emily, and their littles.

 

 



River Happy and Sun

 

 

 

 

Just got these pictures a few days ago.  They are from two years ago, but I just loved thinking of the sun and how happy we are on the river.

 

 

 

What We're Thankful For 2012

Tonight was our annual "What We're Thankful For" night.

 

 

I have record of our gratitude list starting in 1999.  Justin was 3 and Brady 1.

 

Every year on the Monday before Thanksgiving we pull out all the past year's thanksful lists and go over them.  It truly tells the story of our lives.

 

 

In 1999 we were thankful for toys, daddy's job, Jesus, and health, to name a few.

 

2000 brought the "whole earth," honeybees and mountains, warmth and T.V.   Brady even said he was thankful for Paige.  It's good we have record of that one.  She was 6 months old, and it really may have been the last time those words came out of his mouth;)

 

 

In 2001 we must have made a trip to Yellowstone because Buffalos made an appearance on the list along with "really pretty rocks" from Justin.  Brady was thankful for Mice...I'm pretty sure I wasn't. I was grateful to be a stay at home mom.

 

In 2002 we got our red leather couches because Darren said that he was grateful that he had kayaks to trade for Mom's couches....I remember that he traded Gus at Thursdays two kayaks for couches!  Brady learned to ride a bike that year and was also grateful for "all bushes and blueberries."

 

2003 was apparently the year of the reptile becuase in addition to the traditional Jesus, home and family we had lizards, cobras, and frogs.  Paige at 3 was grateful for heads and pencils. 

 

Skip to 2005 and we were way into bikes....the boys were grateful for "jagged edge, Evil Kneval, and Rocky mtn"  these were jumps they had made had the dirt hills not far from our house.  Darren was thankful for bike races - I think that was the year we did a few mtn.bike races.  We must have flooded the basement that year because I was thankful for "electricty and running water, but not in the basement."

 

By 2009 we had been grateful for many rivers.  Food, books and friends started appearing.  That year I was grateful for tough cars, a bike that I hadn't gotten to ride yet (due to the car not beign quite tough enough) and thoughtful, helpful people.  Life in general that year.  Being alive was good.

 

2010 and 2011 brought gratitude for ski helmets and unweighted oars (the oar to face incident), first kayak descents of the Murtaugh for the boys, rainbows for Paige, and LOTOJA drafting for mom.

 

This year the first thing out of Paige and Justin's mouth  - that we still have 1 month and 3 days to live (Mayan calendar),  stealing wishes at Shoshone Falls and parents that buy gas.  Three teenagers that are more fun than we ever thought, a 9:31 LOTOJA, and a survived mtn. bike adventure in Bend.  I am NOT grateful for WIND in St. George, but am thankful for being in a position where doing an Ironman was even a possibility.

 

Of course I am just writing the fun, humorous stuff.  Every year we are grateful for each other.  Every year it is written that Darren is grateful for me.  Every year we are thankful for the knowledge that Jesus Christ is our Savior.  Every year we are grateful for His mercy and grace.  We know we are blessed with health, home, and peace. 

 

Darren and I have reflected on the fact that each of us were raised in a home where parents expressed gratitude for all, and were content and happy people.  Gratitude is a key to happiness, and a true virtue.  There are many things every single day to be grateful for. Somedays you just have to look harder than others. I hope my kids will always remember to be grateful, everyday, not just at Thanksgiving.

 



Cyclocross

 

It's that time of year! Cyclocross season!

 

Today's race was at Rock Creek park.  It is a challenging course, maybe suited more for a mountain bike, but fun nonetheless.

 

 

 

 Justin camped last night down at Shoshone Falls, showed up to race, took third place, then headed home to shower just in time to go to Sadie Hawkins!  We are seeing less and less of this kid these days.

 Brady was home from school with a cold yesterday but decided to come help set up the race with us, and ended up racing.  He used my cross bike and did so great!  4th place!  This is against mostly adults!

Since Brady had my bike, I used Darren's.  His race was after ours.  In this picture I am trying look like the cool cyclocross people do when they just hop off their bike and just kind of skip over the obstacle.... by the fourth lap it was more like a fumble.

 Darren at the starting line



 Darren cruising. 

Last race he rode in the "B" group and kicked tail, so he jumped up to "A" this week.  He still took 4th behind some fast Ketchum guys.

 This is the crux of this race.  Two years ago I didn't even ride down it on my mtn. bike.  This picture doesn't even show the half of it!

 

Darren made it look so smooth!  My first try I hit one of the poles at the bottom and lost my glasses.  On my second loop in the race I went head over heels and landed in the grass... I got dang lucky and only have a few scrapes and bruises.  See pic below! Although as I type I am getting more sore by the minute! I guess I don't bounce as well as I used to!

 

The next time around I was sooo nervous and didn't decide until the last second to go for it and I had a perfect run.  When they told me I had to go for a fourth lap I was so bummed because I really didn't want to have to ride this part again.  I did it and I noticed Darren in the distance watching to make sure I made it ok!

Seriously, how I did I get all the way over there?

 There were a few muddy spots on the race, which is what cyclocross is all about!  We all came home covered in it!

 Paige raced one lap in the kids race and in a sprint finish pulled off first place!

 

Girl Power!

I somehow pulled off second!  Does it count for something that I am 20 years older than her?:)

 

It wasn't even close.  She beat me handily.

 

 

 

What a great day!  We showed up early to help our friend Jerrod set up the course.  It was a family affair all around.  Everyone had a great day and went home feeling like they had accomplished something!  Brady and Darren headed out for some yard work, I started on the laundry, Justin was at Sadie Hawkins and Paige cleaned her room. 

 

We are a tired and happy family tonight!