2) Kids can do hard things.
3) Kids should do hard things.
4) God is good.
At the beginning of August Kyle proposed that we take our family on a multi-day rafting trip. My initial reaction was "Nope." However, I started praying seeking God's guidance and I got this strong sense that this was a perfect opportunity for me to practice trusting my husband. So, I reluctantly agreed. We discussed which rivers would have enough flow in mid-August and which would be appropriate for our family. We decided on the Deschutes River. This is a river Kyle is familiar with, has been on multiple times and others supported the idea that this would be a great first multi-day family river trip.
Our kids went to spend a few days with my parents, and during this time, Kyle and I did the prep work. We rigged up the raft, I pre-cooked all of our food and froze it (an amazing tip that I will be forever grateful for) and we packed our dry bags. This entire time, I felt sick to my stomach. I prayed, I kept seeking God's assurance that this was okay, and then I trusted Him. I trusted God to provide me with the strength to go through with the trip and I trusted my husband to execute the technical rafting part of the trip under the guidance our our amazing Creator.
We went to my parents, picked up our kids and started our rafting adventure. However, like most things in our lives, we started with a hiccup. We are out in the middle of no-where without cell service, and have realized we left our permit for the river in our car...3 and a half hours away! We debated what our next move should be. We definitely didn't want to get caught without our permit, but also didn't want to miss out on our trip because of this oversight (we had paid for the permit, but were missing the proof that we had). After much deliberation and discussion about what to do we were able to get about one bar of cell service if we set our phone in just the right spot. We were able to get a message out to my parents, they were able to send up a picture of our permit information! We saved a copy of the picture and wrote our permit number down to have it handy, and trusted that it would be enough if someone ask for it (which they never did, but we did have to turn in our permit number at a few different spots along the route).
The first day, we got on the river later than we wanted to. It was almost 1:30 in the afternoon. Ryker wanted to start out in the kayak and spent many hours in it throughout the three days on the river. He is by far our most daring child, sometimes I catch Gunnar convincing Ryker to try things first, just to make sure it is okay. Once we were on the river it was like the stress-release valve opened. I knew that for the next 3 days, it was just me and my family, no outside interruptions.
We had one named rapid the first day, the most technical and Kyle was amazing. He pulled the raft over before, and all of us walked down and scouted the rapid. He explained to us, exactly what he would be doing. He executed his plan with perfection. Poor guy had a lot of pressure on him. We have our 4 kids with us (ages 9, 7 (he turned 8 yesterday), 6, and 4), and he knew that I was super nervous.
After the rapid, we only had a short distance to our campsite. It was the perfect spot. Enough shade and great views. And, despite our late start, we were at camp by 6pm.
While Kyle and the boys worked on setting up camp, I cooked dinner. Which was more like heating it up, because it was already precooked. It went super fast, and we had dinner within 20 minutes of arriving to camp. That evening was spent throwing a football, chatting, and laughing together.
Bedtime was a new experience as we only brought tarps and our air mattresses. Maverick actually cried when he heard we didn't have a tent. The kids settled down faster than I thought in the heat and were out within 10 minutes. Kyle and Gunnar took the mosquito's bites for the family. I had a few spiders fall on me from the trees, but other than that, it was a great, uneventful night.
We knew we had another short day on the river, so after breakfast, packing up most of camp (other than lunch and chairs), Kyle convinced us all we wanted to take a hike. He said it was a mile to a flag on top of a ridge. A mile didn't sound bad. However, this didn't prove to be an ordinary mile. This mile, took over 2 hours, a whole lot of sweat, big elevation gain, and this mile almost had me calling quits. When I could finally see our destination, I said "no, we can't do this." It was steep, and seemed impossible for our 2 younger ones. Just as I was about to completely call it quits, this family, an older couple and their adult children crossed our path as they were on their way down. They were God-sent. They gave me the encouragement I needed to go on. Nora and Maverick found their last ounce of energy and made it to the top, in fact, I'm not sure they would have quit even if I gave them permission too. Not once did they ask to not continue on. They were excited to check out the geocache, but ended up being disappointed with the contents inside. It was a great lesson, in "even when you work hard, life can still be disappointing." Maverick was really hoping to find a squirt gun up there to help cool him down. We cheered them up with the idea of brownies waiting for us back at camp. The walk down, was faster, but not necessarily easier. The next day we found out that it was 121 degrees the day we decided to hike. Nora and Maverick shed many tears on the way down, and Nora was carried part of it. I was so mad on the way down, I didn't talk much, not until we were back at camp, and I had my water refilled and cold river water on my body to cool me down. The funny part is, now, that it was been a week, no one talks about the hard parts, just the rewarding parts of the hike. After lunch and brownies we were back on the river. We spent about 4 hours on the river this 2nd day, and just went through a couple rapids. Nora spent most of this day "riding the bull," she simply loves the thrill and adventure. We arrived at another perfect campsite, and set up camp. During dinner, a lightning storm began in the hills around us. The kids ask a lot of "what-ifs" and were a bit scared. I wasn't too concerned about fires, as most of the land around us had already burned. Kyle informed the family of the storm plan for sleeping. A few hours into our sleep, I felt the raindrops start falling on my face. Kyle soon woke up and after the rain started coming down harder he said it was time to put our plan into action. We quickly started with one of us on either side of our kids, grabbing their sleeping bags and tossing them onto our queen size mattress. Our kids are sound sleepers. Gunnar kept saying "I don't understand, where do you want me to lay" all while laying exactly where we wanted him. The only other sounds were heard from them was a slight whimpering from Nora as Ryker was laying directly on top of her. Once she was moved, we threw the kids mattress out of the way (bad idea, and we are lucky it didn't blow any farther then it did), Kyle and I then attempted to find places on the mattress and we took the tarp they were laying on, and the two of us did our best to hold it down over everyone while everyone else continued to snooze, we were fighting the wind and rain. Thankfully it was short-lived, less than 20 minutes as we both admitted how uncomfortable we were. Once the rain let up, we got up, put their tarp back, tracked down their mattress, and started setting them back onto it. We were not gentle, but they slept through it all. They were all unaware of the storm upon waking up. The rain started up once more in the night, but thankfully it was just a sprinkling. It didn't even wake Kyle up.
Sleeping under the stars was fun. I slept better than I thought I would, and our kids all slept just like they do at home, like rocks.
The next morning we got up earlier as it would be a longer day on the river. Kyle had breakfast and coffee started when I decided to roll off the mattress. The flies were bothering him, so he got up earlier. We got breakfast made and camp packed up and hit the water around 9am. We had a fun day of rapids. This was the day I was most nervous about, as it was the "big water" day. The kids kayaked most of the morning, but when we took out before the big rapids for a mid-morning snack another mother approached me. She ask me about my family and then inquired about us getting out at this particular spot. I told her that we would be continuing on. She was surprised, and said, "oh, you must be getting out at Maupin (the city and before the class iv rapid)." When I told her that we were continuing on, past Maupin to the last take-out on this section of the river, she gasped and said nothing for what seemed like an eternity. I stood there awkwardly while she took it in, and then all she could mutter was, "well, I guess your kids have good life jackets." I agreed in my most confident voice and then left the conversation and wished her well on the remainder of their journey. I then went over and gave Kyle my speech of uncertainty. We debated about the kayak for the kids for a while, but after I excused myself to the restroom, I came back and he had the kayak packed up. He wanted this to be a stress-free trip and he knew that the kayak needed to go away for this section of the river for me to actually relax.
We had an amazing afternoon. Kyle maneuvered the rapids in the safest ways possible (in my non-expert, wife and mother of 4 kids in the raft opinion). The rapids were scary, but thrilling, and rewarding for everyone in the raft. The kids were expecting much bigger waves and voiced some disappointment, but it was perfect. It was the best possible first family multi-day whitewater trip for our family that we could have ask for.
When we got to the end and were packing up, Maverick was looking around, watching everyone and came up to me and ask, "do these people all know Jesus?" We told him that it wasn't likely, and Maverick sat and thought about that for quite some time. My kids have amazing faith in God. This trip was an opportunity to see their trust in Him in action. When things got hard, or a little scary, we prayed. We had many opportunities to show them the wonders on God's amazing creation, even out in the dry, hot, but beautiful area of the Deschutes River. I am so thankful for this trip we took, I learned a lot about my family, and probably more important, I learned a lot about myself, and my amazing husband. He never gets enough credit for anything he does. He had a rough week prior to going on the trip, but he was still the most positive, kind-hearted, and loving man I know. He pushed me to make this trip happen, and I am so glad he did. I hope it is the first of many great adventures on the river for the Pettit family. I loved the way my family interacted with each other. Everyone was looking out for each other, always concerned about their siblings well-being and safety. Everyone worked hard to set up camp and take down camp everyday. We did hard things, like hike in 120 degree heat, spent hours sitting on a raft, and we went through challenging and fun rapids together, and through it all we grew. We grew stronger as a family.
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