Going up River

I decided that today was the day that we were going to hike up the river by our house. We always go to the same swimming hole but I want to know what's beyond our area. I decided not to pack Kemiah in the backpack carrier for two reasons - it would be more fun for her, and hopefully easier on me. Wearing our swimsuits and backpacks (Marissa had sandwiches, Ben had the drinking water, Emily had the floaties and I had the camera), we walked up the road a bit and then entered the river. I was holding onto Kemiah the entire time, lifting her over big rocks and letting her feel the pull of the current. She kept saying, "waga! waga!" which is water in her language. I asked, "Can you say river?" She said, "riber. waga! waga!" Silly girl. Marissa and Ben were way up ahead of the rest of us and I loved watching them explore and meet the challenges of wading through a river. Emily and Xiomara kept right with me and had a great time as well. Kemiah and Xiomara were very interested in the snails so they kept getting hand fulls anytime we slowed down. Kemiah even tried to eat one - but she spit it out when I told her to. It really was a nice walk in the river, even though it was slower than I wanted to be and they kept asking, "Can we swim now?" I wanted to see farther up but I guess we saw what we needed to see. We came to a nice swimming hole and so we swam. A neighbor who lives right there came down and played with the kids so that was a bonus. We ventured a bit farther up the river to a nice flat area so we ate our lunch and then headed back to the nice hole to swim some more. It was a great adventure. Maybe next time we'll go down river to see where it enters the Caribbean Sea. Wanna come?

Kemiah is sitting on a rock like a saddle, with her legs going behind her. It was just a funny little position.

Just love the pose.

(They heard a dog - Kemiah was excited, Xiomara was nervous)

Ben tried his hand at real fishing. He made a hook out of a paper clip and was armed with bread as bait. The fish took the bait but didn't get caught on the hook. He also wanted to catch a crab, and crawfish but that didn't happen either.

Here she is posing again. Such a sweet, silly girl!