Catching up... Rafting and Piano Lessons

Rafting the Royal Gorge...before

As you can tell by my last post, it has been 2 months since I last blogged. We have moved into our new house and things are getting slowly put together. When I feel it is picture worthy/ready, I will post pictures.

So over the Holiday weekend we took an amazing rafting trip with our dinner group. We have 6 couples that usually go, but we missed our friends, the Kovachs, because she is 7 months pregnant. The other 5 couples all came and we had a great time. We were able to go down to Canon City, CO and take a trip down the Royal Gorge. Because it is so early in the season and there is so much runoff, the water was extremely high and fast. Our guide is the brother-in-law of one of our dinner group members. He didn't charge us hardly anything. He was experienced and straight forward. I think he scared a few members of the group. There were two choices, either the Gorge which is mostly class 5 (the hardest) or Big Horn which has only 1-2 class 5s. We decided to be brave and go down in the first group down the Gorge. I have to say, when you get on the raft and your guide starts saying things like, "this one even scares me," or "I'm not going to lie, this one isn't my favorite." It doesn't really instill confidence. Needless to say during the first class 5 literally 10 minutes into the trip, 3 of us were tossed off. The two others were rescued immediately, where as I was forced down under the boat and down river. I have never been so cold in my life. The temperature was about 60 degrees and breezy outside and the water was a bout 50 degrees. Luckily I made it out of the water, a little bruised and beat up, but it was an adventure. Once I gathered myself, we were right at it again. There were not breaks. These rapids were one right after the other. I will admit I thought to myself, can I just hike out? do I have to go the next 8 miles down the river? I was brave and kept paddling my way down.

after

Pretty soon we come to the BOAT EATER Rapid. This is when our guide says this one scares him. GREAT, so fun! Of course, Aaron goes off in the worst possible place, we were lucky he got right back on. Our guide said the last boat that flipped there, the entire group had to be given CPR and rescued by rope from the sides of the river. SCARY, glad he didn't tell us that before we went through it. Aaron was pretty beat up, but nothing we couldn't handle. We had a great time, we are sore and I think I have whiplash today, but so fun!!!

after

The next group decided to take it a little easier and go down the Big Horn Sheep. The came back with not fall outs and had a great time too.

Thank you to all of our friends for a fun day, I still can feel the freezing cold water...brrrrr!

PIANO LESSONS

Well, since I have moved into my new house I can finally start teaching more piano lessons at home. I have been teaching about 8 kids for the last year, from home, but now I finally have more time and want to take on more students. I am really trying to get my name out there and get more students. I teach all ages starting at 3 1/2 and will teach up to any age. I love to teach. I really enjoy piano and seeing the growth that happens when someone practices and they pass of songs and seeing them accomplish so much. SO FUN!! Well, if you are here in the area and are looking for a piano teacher or know of anyone else who is, let me know or let them know. I teach out of my house, but I also will come to your house and teach if that is your preference.

Piano Recital in December

Finally, updated the blog. I have much more to update on, but I will save that for later.