Tubing in Helen

For Chad's birthday instead of having a party with friends he decided he wanted to go tubing down the Chattahoochee River with friends.  We invited everyone he wanted to but only Mish and Thomas ended up making the trip with us.  Although he missed the other people he invited, he still had an awesome time with those of us that did come!  We have been tubing before and on at least one of the previous trips, the water level was so low that floating was near impossible in some shallow spots.  Luckily, that was not the case this time.  This was Caleigh's first time tubing and I was skeptical as to what she would think about it so we opted for the "short" trip which was only an hour and a half.  Next time, it will be the long trip.   Here is where she reminded us that we needed to keep on our "scun-screen". ( More on scun-screen here)

Her float was tethered to mine and her and I took off. As we looked back, we saw that Mish and Thomas were stuck on rocks already and Chad had flipped out of his tube and was scrambling to get back in to catch up to us. I gave them a few minutes to catch us but after they didn't appear, I jumped out of my raft and held on to Caleigh until they all managed to make their way down river.   We didn't take our phones down the river so the following pics are stock photos so you could get an idea of what we did.

 Before and after we tubed down the river, we played in the waterpark!  There were four waterslides, a lazy river, a water mushroom, and bounce houses and slides.  The tubes were completly dark and Caleigh LOVED going down them.  She is 44inches tall.  All of the water slides required you be at least 42inches tall to go down but Chad and I decided that the open slides were just a little too advanced for her and she did not like this fact.  Even though she was willing to go down them, we were not willing to let her.  We consider ourselves pretty adventurous when it comes to stuff like this but we were just not comforable with those two slides.  After Chad went airborn going down it, I couldn't allow Caleigh to do it. 

 After tubing and playing in the water park all day, we walked the city of Helen for a while.  Caleigh and Chad pressed a penny with quite a few onlookers.  Caleigh loved watching the horse and carriages go down the road.  A street performer made her a balloon flower. We bought some fudge at a sweet shop.

 Chad and Caleigh posed for a quick picture.

 We took a family picture in the city.

And, Mish and Thomas opted for some old fashioned photos! So cute!

By the time we made it to dinner, Caleigh was exhaused.  She chowed down on some popcorn shrimp, mac and cheese, and an ice cream cone at the Western Sizzlin before laying out in the chairs.

 The two hour drive home was very peaceful.  She slept the entire way.  I was scared she wouldn't sleep when we got home, but she had no problem going right to bed.  This is how most of our days have ended lately.  Coming home late with a sleepy baby!  But we are having so much fun this summer!