30 Before 30 - #28 and #30 Completed

I finally got to go kayaking on Wednesday!  :D  First I want to mention that even though I put my watermark on a couple of these pictures I didn't take them (obviously they are of me haha).  A really good friend took them for me and she said I could post them on the blog, but I put a watermark on my favorites just to be safe since my blog is public.  I had soooo much fun!  I was nervous at first because I barely know how to swim (more on that in a minute), which is why I'm wearing a life jacket, but I quickly got over being nervous.  It was so fun and boy did I get a workout lol.  We went out on a lake for my first time, but I'm looking forward to trying a river next time.  :D  Here are some more pictures.

 

 

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.  Aren't the lake and pier gorgeous??  Kayaking was number thirty on my list... number twenty eight was zip lining, but I've totally chickened out on that after hearing some stories about it lol so I changed it to learn how to swim, which I made huge progress on recently!

Growing up I was terrified of deep water and never learned how to swim.  As a teenager I started spending more time in friends' pools or in pools at hotels and learned how much fun being in the water is.  I was determined to learn how to swim because I was sick of being afraid of drowning so I started practicing any time I had access to a pool (which is about two or three times a year, so not much at all).

The first thing I learned was the dead man's float where you lay forward on your stomach (closing my eyes and holding my nose unless I had goggles lol).  That was really easy and helped alleviate some of my fear.  It took a couple of years to learn how to float on my back because I was afraid of people touching me when I was in the water, but eventually my husband taught me how.  I held on to the side of the pool at first, but now I can float on my back and even use my arms to move around while on my back.

Then I learned how to swim under water (in the shallow end).  I wanted to learn to swim on top of the water though with my head up.... however no matter how much I practiced I just couldn't figure it out!!  Then on the fourth of July we went to visit friends out of state and stayed in a hotel with a pool.  My husband once again started teaching me how to doggie paddle with my head above water.  I think what made the difference this time is that the pool at it's deepest point was only five feet!  I'm five foot ten so I was able to stand flat footed in the deep part with my head above water.  :D

I started out in the shallow part with my husband supporting me and then started swimming (doggie paddling) on my own.  Then I moved to the deep part.  By the time we went in (because a storm was on the way and lightning was getting scary close) I was swimming all over the pool.  So exciting for someone who has been trying to self teach herself how to swim for over ten years lol!!!  I have a video on my husband's cell phone, but I haven't uploaded it so I'll share it later.

So that's two goals completed this month!  I'm so happy.  :D

P.S.  I'll update on house building progress tomorrow.  It's the main reason I haven't been blogging.  We've been so busy!