...near death experience...

july 4th was way more interesting than i had hoped.  i was expecting a good time, but not quite so much excitement.  we went to my mom's lake house on lake hartwell with some extended family as we do every 4th of july.  i had three aunts, an uncle, two cousins, and two other children there with us for the weekend. 14 folks at my momma's lake house= recipe for FUN.  

everything started out beautifully on the 4th.  we took the pontoon boat out for a lake cruise around 10 am, and even played on the wave runners.  we have a big tube that we tie onto the back of the boat or wave runner to pull people around, and this is where the drama began.  steve headed out to pull my cousin sara and my 5 year old sara around in the tube.  here's a photo as they departed:

steve swung them around a curve, and they both flew off.  no problem.  he pulls back around and picks up my 5 year old and sets her on the front seat.  he is standing and facing backwards pulling in the tube, much like this photo (although this one was taken with anna katherine sitting up front)-- 

all of the sudden sara holds down the throttle and pushes the start button.  the wave runner jumps forward and speeds away at close to 50mph, as steve gets thrown off the back holding the rope and trying to pull her back.  

(yep, it's a good thing i wasn't watching at this point because i think i just might have had a heart attack)

sara's flying full speed ahead towards the shore.  steve keeps looking at the shore and then back at sara. panic sets in. he's screaming at the top of his lungs for her to stop, and then 4 or 5 seconds before she would slam into the shore she pushes the stop button. yep. and she stops. seconds away from certain disaster. thank you lord for your intervention when we need it!

steve attempts to swim over to her, but his hand is causing severe pain so cousin sara swims

 over and rescues little sara.  they pile on the wave runner, nerves shot and hearts racing, and finally arrive back at the dock where i am waiting.  steve drives up and i see his mangled hand. immediately i rush him off and we head to the emergency room for x-rays and a doctors opinion.  i thought for sure we would be in the emergency room for HOURS on end, but the hartwell hospital wasn't expecting to get busy with drunken 4th partiers until later that night. whew. so we were outta there in only 2 hours. and no broken bones either! 

here is a picture of steve's hand (which doesn't look nearly as bad as it did in real life) and a picture of him getting all doctored up:

believe it or not, we even ended up taking the boat out to see fireworks later that evening.  here is a picture of sara doing just fine...

steve is on the mend, and somehow sara ended up believing that she was the hero of the day because she stopped the wave runner.  we go back to the lake this weekend with friends and needless to say we will be keeping little sara FAR far away from the wave runner controls. pray for my girl and pray for us-- i think we might be in for an exciting future with this little firecracker!