Shaw Family River Trip

Florida diaries continued....actual event October 31, 2009 (That's right over a month ago)

Shaw family back ground story......

Growing up we heard stories about my dad water skiing, duck hunting, fishing, and lots of other really fun adventures on the waters of Florida. This obviously created a really great childhood for him since a lot of these things he was able to do with his dad. Needless to say, my dad loves to spend time on the water, it doesn't really matter which one, as long as there is flowing water to paddle, nature, and good time, he is all about it.

He has passed this love on to us. Several years ago he bought a Pontoon boat and started his own business, North Florida River Expeditions. Unfortunately for others the business never really made it, but fortunately for us we got a lot of use out of this great boat. We has a Shaw family of 5 would take it out often for day trips down surrounding rivers. We have been on the Sante Fe, Ocklawaha, St. Mary's, and most recently the Suwannee River.

Shaw family present day......

The Shaw family now consists of 11 fabulous people so we have had to expand our boating efforts to include a canoe. We were missing Laurel/Ida, Isaac, and Justin. One day we will be able to go all together, but we managed with who was available. These trips are so much fun there is no TV, Radio, or Computers, but there is lots of time to enjoy each other and the beautiful earth and all of its creations. We didn't see anyone else on the river that day, it was just us and the river. It was a top notch day!!!

Here we are with our final preparations before setting sail. We packed the traditional egg salad sandwiches, chips, fruit, and lets not forget the brownies (no river trip is complete without these essential foods).

Here are some of the other adventures that took place........

Swimming!! Mostly just by the boys in the shallow parts where we could see the bottom. Did I mention we were on the Suwannee River? Aunt Nancy personally has a gigantic fear of gators, so needless to say I didn't get in, but the boys didn't seem to mind, plus we made sure the coast was clear before diving in.

Photo Ops - Nothing better then a pregnant lady in a bathing suit that hasn't seen the sun in years. Just focus on the boys and how dang adorable they are.

The boys really enjoyed being able to get on and off the boat. The river was extremely low and so there was plenty of shoreline for them to run on. So if they got tired of sitting we would just let them off and they would run along the shore line as dad paddled the boat. Here is little video demonstration. I hate to hear the sound of my voice on the video, but the boys are such adventurers I couldn't resist posting it.

How you might ask do the boys get on and off the boat??? Great question. Here is another video that I just think is great. This scene presented itself many times that day. (Mom, now you can hear yourself on video and understand why I didn't talk on the nursery video, we sound ridiculous)

We had a great time, the boys especially. We all walked away with either some extra bumps, bruises, scrapes, sunburn, blisters, or exhaustion, but won't have changed a thing about the day.

Another great adventure that happened that day was the fact that I locked the keys to the car, which was parked at the take out point of the river in the truck which was about 5 or 6 miles up the road where we put in at the beginning of the day. We might have traveled on the river without most electronics but thankfully we had Becky's cell phone so that we could call for help. A HUGE THANK YOU to Brother Lowery for coming to our rescue. I would like to blame that stupidity of putting the car keys in a "safe place" on pregnancy, but for those of you who know me know that I probably would have done it anyway.