Dragon's Head

Friends showed us a beautiful waterfall about an hour from our house where we can swim and play.

Bob had to work the first time we went and the water was deeper than I expected so I almost had a mini heart attack keeping track of Calista and Beatrix.  Lots of the area was only ankle deep, but it did just drop off super deep so I was stressed the whole time.

This place actually has two water falls.  and the second one has a rope swing right next to it.

It was scary but after watching several people do it I gave it a try.  The water was freezing, but the rope swing was so fun.

Tucker really wanted to go on the rope swing.  I think he normally would have been really scared but he is so social that after his friends were all doing it he really wanted to (not sure that is a good thing).  He barely hesitated even though he has never jumped off anything like this into the water before.

We went out for lunch afterwards.

The next time we went I was sure to bring life jackets.  In fact I went to the store the night before and bought four just for this occasion.  It was so worth it.  Way less stressful.  Even some of my bigger kids wanted to wear them.  They prefer to float around instead of the effort of having to swim.

We got completely soaked walking through the woods to the waterfall.  It was raining so hard and there was lightning and thunder.  Beatrix was crying and our clothes socks and shoes were soaked through.  It started raining about a minute after we left the car.  I wouldn't have even gotten out of the car if it started raining a minute earlier.  I honestly would have turned back but Tucker was so far ahead that he never would have heard me shouting for him to come back.  I decided we needed to walk all the way to the waterfall so I could meet up with him and then we could go back.  But once we got there we all decided to wait and see if the rain stopped.  After about 20 minutes we were good to go.  

We had a good time.  And this time we not only did the rope swing but jumped off an even higher rock.  Penelope and Leon were even convinced to do the rope swing.  Check out the videos.