Here's your bail out sponge

This was a fantastic memorial day weekend.  Spent Saturday with the Clarks and meeting Rachel's new boy.  He's good for her.  I can see it.  He is exactly what she needs.  It makes me feel good about her moving with him.  Ob was fantastic as usual.  So very pleasant and jovial with me.  He's always been the only one I've ever felt comfortable around.  The Clarks were great, awkward may have only been from my perspective.  I took Carter with me, as he wanted to go along.  He loved every second of hanging out with his Aunt Tasha.  He was adorable and I can't believe how much fun we had together.

Saturday night, I went down to Luke's to help set up for the camping trip.  I must say that from the very beginning when I met these boys, I have always felt as though they were Trista's friends and they were just being nice to me.  So Luke always takes me under his wing and looks after me.  He knows how uneasy I am around everyone.  Its just weird for me for several reasons.  One main reason is I've always happily lived in Trista's shadow with this group.  But that makes me guilty by association.  So its always hard to engage the girls because they think I'm Trista's best friend, therefore, I too have slept with their boyfriends.  I made a very personal vow a long time ago that I would never ever sleep with someone Trista has slept with.  Which is probably, along others on the list, as to why all the boys I've ever been involved with have live so far away.  Anyway, it was a good guy/girl ration.  First all the guys except Neil were single which meant I didn't have to break through much ice.  Next, I knew Jamie and Christa and they knew me outside of Trista, so I didn't have to win any battles there.  The last girl, Ashleigh, I didn't know at all, but we broke through any ice and were very talkative by the end of the weekend. 

We started at Luke's place at 8 on Sunday morning.  Packing 9 of us into the van and loading Curtis' trailer.  Curtis dropped us off in Kennerdell, to meet up with us that night.  We drop our boats and off we go.  Jamie and I opted to canoe as opposed to Kayak to make hauling easier.  So we are in Travis' canoe and about five minutes after setting out, we start to reach the Kennerdell bridge and I look down and there is water all over the boat.  "Hey, Jamie, there's a leak in our boat."  She doesn't bother to look back, but rather says, are you sure the water isn't from switching the oar back and forth? I am like, Jamie.  Take a look, there is no way this is from the oar.  Low and behold, our boat is fucked.

Luke comes over and said, "here's your bail out sponge."  hahaha the laughter that ensued was priceless.  We were bailing out water faster than we could soak it out with a sponge. (thank god for Jamie's stop at McDonalds or we wouldn't have had a cup)

This weekend was so much fun.  We saw frogs, and birds, ducks, and geese, fish and crabbies.  The river was cold and windy, but sunny. 

We sat around a blazing fire all afternoon when we finally landed.  Everyone drank some beer, relaxed and conversed.  It was close enough to the things I do in Australia to waive my homesickness for just a bit.

I'm living in the moment.  Appreciating what is happening in the here and now.  I really feel like I'm growing as a person.