River rapids

We celebrated Jorge's 14th birthday with a family white water rafting trip on the Nantahala River.

The younger children and their mothers were in the designated calm boat.

Everyone else was in the "wild" boat. The river guides did a terrific job of customizing each boat's ride to what the people on board requested.

After the first rapids, Juniper proclaimed that she loved it. The second, bigger rapids splashed us with 52 degree water and began the permanent cold foot puddle at the bottom of the raft. Juniper was in tears and proclaiming that she wanted to get off the boat. But a few minutes later, when she was asked which fork of the river to take, she enthusiastically replied, "The longer one!"

The grand finale of the ride was the Class III Nantahala Falls, where all of these pictures were taken. Our guide gave us a heads up and a safety reminder before we approached the falls Juniper was nervous about the possibility of falling out of the boat and said that she was "all scared," definitely not a mix of scared and excited. She started to perk up when she saw a sign that advised: "Danger! Falls ahead. Screaming advised."

Approaching the falls...

Going over!

Even the calm boat got a big splash here. After we were done, Juniper said that she was "all excited, not at all scared!" Once she got over that initial cold water shock, she really loved the rest of the ride and can't wait to do it again.

Mark kept getting in trouble from their guide for paddling too hard. She told him he'd make a great river guide, but that as a passenger, he needed to turn it down to about 25% because he kept turning the boat around.

Nice to see the birthday boy having so much fun...

...and his grandmother too. Let the record state that my mom is an awesome good sport.

Can you tell which member of a party has done this enough to know where to look and how to ham it up for the camera?