Canoe Camping on the French Broad River

I have wanted to go on a canoe trip for a long time, but just have never put one together. Garett Jackson and I had a backpacking trip planned during a break prior to graduation, but he ended up injuring his ankle. Rather than cancel completely, we elected for an early season canoe camping trip, which would be much easier on his ankle. We were also able to take his two young sons along. Apparently, the French Broad River is one of the oldest rivers in the world, right here in our backyard in Western North Carolina.

Day One on the French Broad River. Our course on the river is the blue line. Put in was near the lower left of the map, where the green balloon is. The river flows south to north and we camped at the near the green balloon in the upper right of the map. We floated about 8 miles. Along the way we fished a little, with no success. Garett took the bow and I the stern.

Day Two on the French Broad River. We pushed off around 9 am under cloudy skies. It never really warmed up much, but was warm enough in the 60s. It only managed to sprinkle on us for about 15 minutes. The outfitter we rented the canoe from said it would take about six hours the second day to cover the 12 miles, but with the high water and good flows we covered it in just over three hours.  It was pretty smooth paddling, except for one spot where there is a tree all the way across the river. At the lowest spot there was still about six inches of the trunk in the way. Garett ended up jumping out onto the tree and pulling the bow over and then I jumped out and pushed us the rest of the way over, It was a little sketchy for a minute, but everything went fine.

Easter 2012

Our friend Will invited us over for a little egg hunt and to decorate and devour cupcakes. McKinley just practiced her skills of crawling and playing with the eggs while Denzil and I found eggs around the house. We had a fabulous time and of course once Denzil realized there was candy in the eggs he only wanted to open them and eat it rather than search for the eggs.

The Easter Bunny brought the kids a new outfit and a cool spider book. McKinley was excited to eat the paper grass and roll the eggs around the floor and of course D was excited about all the candy! We also went to our friends house for dinner and another egg hunt.

Denzil was excited to color eggs for Easter, but probably more excited about the stickers in package. The speakers at church were great, one gave an excellent talk about the last week of the Savior's life. We had a little lesson before church with Denzil about the reason we celebrate Easter, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I think he understood a little and they also talked about it in nursery. We are so grateful for Jesus Christ and his life here on earth and that he completed the Atonement for all of us that we may all be resurrected someday. It is an amazing thing to think about our bodies being united forever and in their perfect form. Happy Easter!

Playing at the beach

We took a trip this week to Wilmington to look at some neighborhoods and houses to rent. We found some areas that we liked and it was fun to drive around and see the area where we will be for a year. The only bad part of the trip was the filthy carpet in our hotel room (McKinley's white socks were so gross) and Denzil throwing up a couple times in a 15 minute period while we were driving around. We also had some time to play at the beach, it was a little cool so we didn't play in the ocean. We bought the kids some sand toys, which they thought were pretty awesome. D has been talking about the beach everyday since we came back.

Denzil had a lot of fun building (and destroying) sand castles with his new buckets and tools.

Suprisingly, she didn't mind the sand at all, she was playing and crawling around, happy as a clam.

Eight months!

Crawl... check
Cute as a button... check.
Saying mama... check.
Saying da... check.
Clapping... check.
Sleeping through the night.... needs improvement.

Match Day 2012

This is the day that medical students wait almost 4 years for. It brings a mixture of anxiety, excitement, fear, and joy. They line them up in eager anticipation and countdown till noon, when they are allowed to open up the letter that tells them where the will be spending their residencies, training to become whatever specialty they have chosen. For us it was good news, Kris is doing a general internal medicine internship for one year in Wilmington, NC, then a residency in anesthesiology at the University of Utah. We are excited to spend a year at the beach and then head back west for the rest, it is fun to move to new places, but excited to be closer to family and the mountains again.