Saturday Snapshot -- White Water Rafting

One more picture of my sons and husband on their white water rafting trip.
This is a picture that they paid for as they were rafting down the river.
Spencer looks like a brute with his paddle in the air, while Tucker and Earl look like they're doing all the work.
Terrific picture of all of them, including the guide on the back.

Apparently, at one point, Tucker was flipped off the back of the raft and caught in a hydraulic. The guide reached in his paddle and helped pull him out. Since Tucker has been a swimmer year-round for 10 years and made it to the State swim meet this year, I figure he could have swum his way out, but what do I know about white-water rafting.

Saturday Snapshot -- Full Moon

After driving 16 hours on Wednesday, I pulled into my parents' neighborhood, cruising past a quiet lake, and saw the full moon reflected there.

The lights could be buildings or car along the highway opposite.
Next weekend is the final  high school graduation for my family. I'm expecting it to be hectic, thrilling and fulfillling.
Hope everyone is having a terrific weekend.

Saturday Snapshot -- Nature

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post on Alyce's blog At Home With Books. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.

As the hectic holiday season is upon us, we all need something to steady us, help us remember the improtant things in life. So I've borrowed a picture from my husband's winter camping trip.


Doesn't this look peaceful?
What are you strategies for staying sane in the holiday season?

Rising Waters

He hadn't been watching all the hoopla on the news, so he was totally unaware of the devastation that was headed his way.
"I was just sitting there in the bathtub when it came toward me -- a wall of water," recalls Tupi the cat.
"Nothing like that has ever happened before. It was a nightmare."
If Tupi had been watching the news, the 24-hour hurricane Irene coverage, he would have been prepared. He would have stocked up on extra food and barricaded himself in with sand bags, ready for that day someone actually turned on the shower when he was in the tub.
Tupi has since found a place to barricade himself and a friend until the "shower" has passed.
I don't mean to make fun of anyone who weathered Hurricane Irene in the past 24 hours. I know that many people have lost power and some people in North Carolina died from falling trees or flash floods.
We laughed this morning at the CNN 24-hour coverage. My feeling is that the news people have watched one too many disaster movie and are always disappointed when it doesn't live up to the catastrophe.
One female reporter was standing on a berm in front of a street and said the water in the street was a foot high and rising. Then she stepped down into it and it actually just came up above her foot. Not "a foot" high, but "her foot" high. Then a car drove past and kind of waited for her to get out of the way so it could get through. Oops. Maybe she was exaggerating just a bit. It was all a little ridiculous.
The camera focused on a downed tree branch and crews working to remove it. What destruction! Then a jogger slowly ran past in the background. Okay, maybe things weren't so bad. The news programs were ridiculous, as if no one in the world had faced such devastation. Truthfully, to the media, if no one in New York has lived through it, then it hasn't ever happened.
I'm breathing a sigh of relief that New York dodged a hurricane bullet, and I'm hoping that the overreaction doesn't make people ignore the warnings next time a storm is on the way.
Mostly, though, I'm hoping Tupi the cat realizes the danger he puts himself in when he hops into that porcelain bathtub. There, the waters can rise at any time.