Canoeing 2012

It's been a few years since the last Johns' Family and Friends Canoe Trip,  but now that we are living in the official Canoe Capital of Va, we decided it was time to plan another adventure together. I am a little late on posting this, but I wanted to document this trip so we can always remember our first Front Royal canoeing adventure.

Since I was in charge of organizing the trip, I had the special blessing of getting to see "behind the scenes" the various ways that God made all of the necessary plans fall right into place. I knew how inadequate my own planning abilities were, and He provided so faithfully for us the whole time.

We all saw His goodness and His beauty as we floated down the river and camped together. Below are a few...okay, a lot of pictures from the weekend. :)

The whole crew! The biggest group yet. And plenty of kids this time!

And here is everyone in each canoe/kayak, still full of energy after just starting the first leg of the trip (Sorry Jenkins family...how did we miss getting a picture of you guys? Probably because you were so fast and already up ahead!):

Bobby and Tanya Stepp

Nathan, Lilly and Joel Foster

Uncle Scott, Aunt Joyce (and Taylor, who is lying down in middle)

The first collision. Not surprising that Uncle Scott was involved.

Derek, Ginger, Landon and Bryar Baker

Mac, Sue and EJ Johns

Jeremy and Amy Brooks

Jay, Lynn and Reed Kimmel

Chris, Kristy and Thomas Beaune

We hit our first set of rapids just a couple miles in the trip...and they were a little more exciting than we expected! The Foster canoe had the most exciting time of all of us...we looked back to see a capsized canoe and lots of items floating down the river. Nathan was holding onto little Lilly, and Joel (9 yrs old) was hooting and hollering and trying his best to rescue all of their stuff. He kept saying, "That was awesome! Let's do it again!" His little sister, Lilly, wasn't so sure about that.

We all decided to pull over and take a little break to dump the water out of our boats and eat and fellowship for a little while.

Here is Nathan re-gathering their stuff. Notice how he only has one shoe. I think the missing one was found eventually in the bottom of Mac and Sue's canoe.

Ellis and Jay

Bobby, Tanya, Robin, Elaina, John and Kristy

Uncle Scott, Nathan, Derek, Lilly, Sue, Joyce, Tabby and Taylor

Ames and Grams (Amy and Amanda). Roommates, teammates, and now canoe trip buddies. Love you Ames.

The little guys (Joel, Reed, Landon, Bryar, EJ and Thomas) were having a blast throwing rocks in to the river.

We stopped for another break along the river and kids had a blast playing in the water. I believe this scene is capturing all of the kids trying to rescue Thomas' little red car from floating down the river. They were successful. :)

We arrived at campsite  in the afternoon on Saturday and had a great time relaxing and eating. The kids were running around and enjoying each other. We even had a great big soccer game after dinner with kids and adults...it was some serious fun.

I think C.S. Lewis summed up our time together pretty well with this quote:

“Is any pleasure on earth as great as a circle of Christian friends by a good fire?”

 

On Sunday morning, Big Mac was up bright and early to start cooking everyone one of his famous breakfasts!

 

 After breakfast, we put in the river for the final leg of the journey. Day two was much shorter and a little more relaxed.

The views were beautiful.

Too bad those Brooks' wouldn't leave us alone!

And the award for getting stranded on the rocks the most times goes to the Johns canoe!

We are looking forward to the next adventure! Thanks to everyone who was able to come and share the weekend with us. 

"We had sweet fellowship together..." (psalm 55:14, AMP)