On June 10th and 11th, Leo and I went to Arkansas for the Arkansas Canoe Club School of River Paddling. I really wanted to learn how to canoe so I could go canoe camping with my kids, and was finding almost nothing but a bunch of very expensive options till I came across this. So I signed us up and I'm so glad I did! I might actually not remember anything, but it was a really fun time with Leo. We stayed at Gypsy Camp and Canoe campground, which was a girls camp back in the 1940s to the 80s (I think, can't remember for sure now) but then it shut down and was flooded and this guy bought it, and basically does canoe rentals and shuttles from it now. It screams the Ozarks. The first night they provided pizza and we ended up hanging out by a group of campers who routinely met up at events hosted by the Arkansas Canoe Club (river runs, river clean ups, whitewater school, etc). It was a very odd group--some from Arkansas, some from Texas, some from Louisiana. One was a doctor, a real estate agent, an engineer, and I don't know about the rest. But they were drinking moonshine with fruit in it and were super friendly. Leo and I were laughing so hard as they got more and more tipsy. It made me remember how the LDS therapist who taught the marriage class in Houston said it might help Mormons relax and have fun more if they drank some. 😂😂😂😂 Anyway, we did learn a lot of useful info and spent one day at a lake practicing different strokes in our canoe. And yes, I was the only person to fall/jump into the lake (I would have tipped the whole canoe if I didn't jump in cause I lost my balance.) Then the next day we spent WAY too long learning river rescue techniques at Siloam Springs Kayak Park. After we floated part of the Illinois. I was ticked because we were supposed to go through the kayak park's rapids, but the guy was like we're out of time, so we carried our canoes past the rapids. Ruff. I actually really loved the Ozarks btw, if we had moved to Arkansas instead of Kansas, I would have been totally fine living and staying there.
A lot of the former campers have come back and painted their names there.
I am *hurray* a stay-at-home mom. I retired many years ago from a long,(4 yr) illustrious career in nursing *boo, hiss*. Most of all, I love Leo (mi papacito esposo de Colombia) and Ana, Elena, Isabel, Sebastian, Nicolas, Jubal, and Efraim (mis hijos). My other passion is also dark and rico and from South America--that would be chocolate. Basically I like to eat chocolate, eat chocolate icecream, eat frozen hot chocolates from Dairy Queen, eat Peppermint Yorks, Junior Mints, and of course dark chocolate truffles. Okay, now that I've wiped the slobber off my chin from thinking about all of that, I'll get on to the rest of my blog. Oh, and I'm trying to learn Spanish but spend too much time blogging here instead.
"Managing a home involves much more than keeping a house clean, organized, and attractive. These skills are important...but these skills are only a means to an end. The paramount objective is to create a setting where family and friends are comfortable and happy, where there are good dinners and good times, where there is fun and laughter, where children acquire good habits and are taught life skills and how to be self-reliant and responsible, where challenges are faced by coupling temporal endeavors with eternal perspectives, where joy through gospel teaching and living prevails, where kindness and respect reign supreme, where love is strong enough to bind the family forever, and where children are nurtured toward eternal life."
--Daryl Hoole
“Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind. It places her who honors its holy calling and service next to the angels.” Elder Boyd K. Packer - November 1993 Ensign
"Dear Prude,
Sober of not, I am forever yours."
-Percy French, a letter to his wife (1776)
"Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories."
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