Near Death Experience

Have I mentioned that with 4 girls there's lots of drama? Ryan and I planned this, what we thought, exciting day of tubing down the Weber River. It was exciting alright, but not in the way we had hoped. We got all geared up and ready. At first the kids thought it was great fun floating down the relaxing lazy river. Ryan and I were pretty pleased with ourselves for coming up with such a wonderful idea. . . . until that dreadful first set of rapids came along and ruined everything (curse those rapids). Taylee was knocked right off her tube and Ryan, being the hero that he is, grabbed her in mid-air. The tube, however, was not so lucky. It was left behind, waiting for someone to come and save it. Ryan put Tay on his tube and went on a search and rescue mission to retrieve it. When we started off, Taylee, Kylee, and Ryan were hooked together while Marlee and myself were together. The kids all had life jackets as an extra precaution. Oh, don't worry, Brinlee was left behind with Uncle Marc (we at least had a little common sense). When Ryan went to get the tube, that left Tay and Ky hooked together, but only momentarily. This is the near death part. . . or so they thought. They got disconnected and the distance between them was growing greater and greater with every second that went by. I think they thought that either their sister, their dad, or they themselves were going to die. At least that's how I interpreted the sound of screaming and crying that was so violently escaping their mouths. To make matters worse, despite my tremendous efforts, I could NOT catch up to them. I instructed Kylee, who was quite a ways behind me, to stick to the side of the river and try to grab a branch, and wait for Dad. I finally caught up to Tay, who fell off her tube AGAIN. All the while Marlee is screaming and crying because we were leaving Dad and Kylee behind, and she wanted to go home. It didn't help that the water was freezing and the wind was blowing. Our teeth were literally chattering, and we had some serious goosebumps going on. We could finally see Ryan and Kylee behind us. This settled Tay and Mar down a bit. When I asked Kylee what ended up happening she started to cry as recalled the events that took place during her traumatic experience. I warned you that my girls were dramatic. Of course we hit a few more rapids and every time, without fail, Marlee would scream and cry (harder than she was already crying, and yell at me because she didn't like the "big ones." As if I had any control over the river, it was somehow my fault according to her. I think it made her angry that I enjoyed the "big ones." The whole time I was attempting to convince the kids that this was fun. They would NOT agree! It was scary, cold, and did I mention scary?! There were a few times that we had to battle with the branches that lined the edges of the river on each side, in order to keep our lovely faces intact, which they loved almost as much as the rapids. All in all, Ryan and I decided that we will wait a few years before we do that with the kids again. It would have been very enjoyable, had it not been for the near death experiences.