Missouri

A month ago now we began our summer holidays in Missouri. We started with a 2 nights on the river float trip, followed by a few days at the cabin, which encompassed 1 day early fireworks for the 4th of July. I think all the other pictures here speak for themselves. Oh, and Bluet did eventually catch a fish.

Canoe trips

Yesterday Bluet was playing with Lego, with her lego people having a picnic on the beach. A little later on I saw she had cleared them away and asked what had happened to her picnic, and she told me that they had finished and packed everything up into the canoe, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. This is because on the float trip in the summer when we were camping on the river, all the food was packed into Nana and Wayne's canoes at the end of each meal. Here is the lego picnic packed into the canoe.

Also we went and practised bike and scooter riding, and later Bluet took a photo of Ilona and printed it out.

BLOGSTRAVEGANZA II

In our second week in Missouri, we took two canoe trips. Camping was something that Bluet had been talking a lot about, and was excited for, so this was a good idea.

Bluet with her paddle, which she was very excited to have

The first trip, with Kara and her family, on the Jacks Fork. We saw two cottonmouth snakes swimming while we were on this trip, but from a distance and they were not very interested in us. (Bluet yesterday mentioned the snake bite, and then told me that she liked snakes).

On this first trip Bluet rode in my canoe a little, before moving to Nana's canoe. Meanwhile Ilona mostly rode in Emily's canoe, often leaning over the side with her hands in the water - she did very well with being confined to the boat, although she didn't always keep her sun hat on, and occasionally would grab the paddle or lean over the side of the boat at the wrong time, making it difficult to manoeuvre. However, that is probably just what you would expect from a 20 month old.

We saw some pretty amazing caves (which Bluet illuminated with a torch; at night the torch would be used to have some kind of disco party in the tent when she and Ilona were supposed to be going to sleep). It was very very hot, so we stopped many times to jump in the water and swim to cool down.

Bluet also became interested in fishing, wanting to touch all the fish that were caught. In fact later in the holiday she got a disney princess fishing rod (or fishing rob, as she calls it) and even caught and reeled in her first fish in a creek on the Brunot farm - a small big mouth bass).

And then after two nights on the river we went to the Brunot cabin before embarking on our second canoe trip. And saw the cows, which Ilona has learned to imitate more accurately than just saying 'moo'

After two nights in real beds we were back on the river........

By the end of these trips, Bluet became pretty fearless in the water (at least when she was wearing her water wings/life jacket combo), happy to float along. On the second trip (on the North Fork) were plenty of other kids (including all her American cousins) so she was able to copy the bigger kids, and was very happy. I don't have many pictures, but I can tell you that it was a bit less hot than the first trip, I found some very cool fossils, and slightly injured my leg* on a rock hidden underwater whilst helping Bluet float down the river.

*I was still able to paddle the canoe and stay on the river for the next 2 days.

 
As you can see, Bluet even learned to swim a little, aided no doubt by several trips to a swimming pool in someone's garden in Charleston, where she even got to jump off a diving board by herself. So there you have it, almost an entire week spent in the wilderness, enjoying the pleasures of Ozark rivers. A fun time was had by all, I think I can safely say. More photos from our trip coming soon.

Messing about on the river

Last Saturday in Missouri we headed off on the annual Corse family summer float trip. This involved a whole bunch of people getting into canoes and spending two days without home comforts such as mobile telephones; fortunately we did take cameras.

Bluet particularly enjoyed 1) being around several other, slightly older kids, 2) spending more time with her cousins Lila and Nate, 3) going in the water, 4) touching the fish that everyone caught (even me, I caught my first three fish ever!)  and (most of all) 5) riding in Wayne's canoe. On the Sunday Bluet and Lila were both riding with Wayne when it started to rain. Hard. We covered the two girls up with a tarpaulin, and they sat under it, totally covered and giggling to each other as we continued downstream. As the thunder and lightning got closer, we pulled the boats ashore to shelter, and eventually camp. It was an experience.

On Monday at the end of the trip we took the boats out at an old water mill. We went and looked at the wheel with Bluet riding on my shoulders. She thought it was a bicycle wheel, despite the enormous size. More interestingly, she said 'I riding on my Dadn's shoulders' rather than 'Bluet riding on Dadn's shoulders' which was the first time we really noticed her using the first person rather than third person to refer to herself. She seems to have gotten the hang of using 'I' and 'my' over the last week.

Oh, and we also saw this copperhead "'nake".

And some butterflies