Tippy in the Canoe

Memorial Day weekend is pretty much the last weekend in Florida that you can have people over and make them stay outside for the entire time they're at your house. After that, it's just plain mean to have an outdoor party. As it is, this is the time of year that the yellow flies feed on human flesh and there are at least four people who attended the BBQ at our house this weekend who can attest to the fact that maybe May is not the best time of year to be outdoors in Florida either. I spent much of my time at the BBQ walking around stalking yellow flies and slapping unsuspecting people on the back of the leg (or arm) (or forehead).

But I digress.

In spite of the biting flies, we had fun. On the invitation, Dez and I promised the children all sorts of water games and planned on having a water slide, but you saw in my last post how that turned out. But as you probably know, you can just fill a kiddie pool with sulphury-smelling well water and the kids will think they've been let loose at Adventure Island or something so long as they're in there together:



At one point, I think there were 7 kids in that little pool and we had to bribe them with cupcakes to get them out when it was time to eat.

And who knew that if you give grown men a backyard, a ball, and some paddle things that they will eventually end up in a tree? Actually, I guess we all knew that:



For me, though, the best part of the day was seeing everyone use the canoe and kayaks and actually get in the water that, as recently as two hours earlier in the day, we'd seen alligators in. We didn't tell them we'd seen the alligator, or that he'd been stalking our dog all day -- why spoil their fun:



Here's Alan trying to get all 12 feet of himself into the kayak that Joe built. To his credit, he did ask how he was supposed to get out if the kayak rolled over while he was in the water. Nobody answered him 'cause nobody knew -- we'd seen him put 6 feet of legs into the body of that kayak, so I don't think anyone thought that he'd really be able to get himself out if he rolled over.



My favorite part of the day was taking Sarah and her two kids, TJ and Elizabeth, for a canoe ride. Note how I am (uncharacteristically) telling everybody what to do -- just barking out orders, "Paddle left!" "Hey! Someone hit Tom on the forehead -- a yellow fly just landed on him!"



I'm so carried away with myself ("Paddle right!") that I don't notice that TJ is starting to teeter on his seat:



And down he goes -- I might as well have been 6 feet away for all the help I was to him. When he fell, it was like watching a slow motion replay of him falling. I just watched him leannnn back and when he started to tip, I couldn't really understand how he was falling because it was so slow. And then he was flat on his back and no one could do anything for him --



Because of his life jacket, he was kind of like a turtle and I couldn't get him upright and hold on to the paddle at the same time, so I just left him there:



Thankfully, (until now) Sarah didn't really know what had happened -- she just heard me laughing hysterically behind her, so she laughed too until she turned around and saw her kid flailing in the back of the canoe and me laughing too hard to help him.



This is how I never end up having to watch anyone else's kids.