the story of the lonely chaco

this past weekend we finally made it to galax to see the fam (the first time we'd made it since the big day). we love going to see josh's parents... not only because we don't see them often, but also because it feels like you're on some crazy weekend retreat with all the fresh air and trees. we love it!
so this time, josh was really, really excited to finally get to ride his new bike (he'd been unable to switch his clip pedals all week.... and his dad had the tool he needed) and, to make it even better, we were taking caleb his new bike so they could ride together! hilarious. saturday morning, we went with caleb and kellie to a new trail where caleb's been a few times. kellie and i went for a walk while the boys went riding.

the girls adventure: it was really fun to just walk and chat with kellie. she's great and will soon (we hope) be our sister-in-law! no pressure! hehe. so as we're walking down the road this truck pulls up and two guys our age tried to pick us up. i was oblivous... kellie talked to them and as soon as they drove away we lost it!! only in galax. not as funny in writing as it was at the time.

the boys adventure: MUD and a very narrow trail. josh's new bike apparently puts his center of gravity at a completely different place, so he took a few rough spills and came back with a lovely blue and green bruise on his hip and cuts up his leg. but they did have fun and caleb loves his new bike! we're so glad.

as soon as we got back to the house, the boys played in the front yard for FOREVER on their bikes:

on sunday, we went canoeing after church on the new river. allison hasn't been canoeing since her girls scouting days, so she was excited! the wind was insane..... and our canoe was flat bottomed, so we sort of went all over the place. it was really run to go over the rougher parts of the river, so wherever possible we tried to hit them :) then, on what josh considers the most fun part of the river, it's sort of like one little rapid off to the side. of course, if you know us, we bypassed the easy part and went straight for the rapid. josh was steering and allison was told to just keep paddling no matter what and paddle as fast as possible, which she did. it's all fun and games and then josh says, "oh no, honey, we're gonna hit the rock... i don't know what happened" and the next thing allison knew, she was in the water. and then josh was in the water. and all the stuff was in the water and the canoe was totally upside down. so allison, who doesn't trust her swimming ability in rocky water, just climbed on the nearest rock leaving josh to grab everything (which totally never occured to allison until josh got frustrated that he was doing it by himself). PRAISE THE LORD the camera and josh's new shoes were grabbed, our new sunglasses stayed on both our heads, and the oars were secured. caleb came and helped flip the canoe and then we just took a cookie break. the only casualty of the day was the right foot chaco :( sadness. it was totally fun to flip, though!!!