Every four years, Jason’s dad’s side of the family has a small family reunion. The last one (and first one that I was a part of) was in Ely, Minnesota. “Jaglo Family Fun Weekend,” as I like to call it, was in Lutsen this year. Jaglo Family Fun Weekend participants include myself, Jason, his mom (Chris), dad (Jack), sister (Kirsten), brother-in-law (Mike), nephew (Jackson), aunt (Kay), Minnesota cousins (Brian, Jacie, and their kids Jack and Adair), and Boston cousins (Mike, Beth, and their kids Mia and Erick.)
Jason and I got up to Lutsen on Thursday evening and hung out with the Fogelberg side of the Jaglo family. The Jaglos weren’t arriving until Friday evening. On Thursday evening, we were discussing what we would be doing the next day. My only contribution to the conversation was that I wanted to do something that would help with my goal of getting a tan…I would later come to regret this! On Friday morning, Jason and I met everyone down at the beach, the kids were playing in the river that led out to Lake Superior. They had discovered that you could work your way down to a mini-waterfall and tube down the river. Small blow-up inner-tubes were purchased from the gift shop. These are not the type of inner-tubes that were meant to be used for tubing, they were more like floaty devices you would have in a pool for kids…but they sort of worked, so the kids were using them. As we were sitting and watching the kids, we saw Beth coming down the river in her clothes so Jacie, Jason, and I were a bit more motivated to do it as well. Jason walked up and came down the river first. He said that it was not the most pleasant thing that he has done, but Jacie and I decided that we would do it anyway. I told Jason that he had to do it with me, which he was less than thrilled about, but thankfully he agreed to come anyway! As we were walking up to the point where the waterfall was, Adair (who is 11) was telling me that I really don’t want to do it. She said that the water was really shallow in points and that there were a ton of rocks so it was actually kind of painful. When I said that I was going to do it anyway, her exact words were “you’ll regret it!” (smart little girl…)
Now, most of you reading this know me pretty well, but for those that don’t, I am really more of an indoor girl. I do not typically participate in “outdoor adventures,” and therefore I am usually not very prepared to participate in them. Apparently I was trying to “step outside of the box” on this trip! So Jason and I got to the point where we would get into the water and Jason let me go first so that he could be behind him just in case I needed his help. I put the pathetic little inner-tube down in the water, sat down, and I was off! I instantly went underwater from the sheer force of the waterfall and the lack of a supportive inner-tube, but after the initial shock I was riding down the river. Then a moment or two later, the part of the river with the shallow water and jagged rocks that Adair was telling me about came up and my butt hit the rocks. As my butt hit, my left hand went down to stabilize myself. My engagement ring has been a bit too big for quite awhile now due to “Operation Skinny Bitch Bride” and I have failed to get it resized as of yet. So…as my hand hit the rock, my beloved engagement ring slipped right off! Although the rushing water tried to continue to push me along, I was able to fight it and stay in the same general area. I yelled to Jason that my ring had just fallen off and he later told me that all he could think was, “WHAT??? You have your engagement ring on?!?” Thankfully, he was able to keep his comment to himself as it really would not have helped the situation. So he steered himself over to me as I was trying to find my ring. The water was pretty shallow and fairly clean, so after looking and feeling around for a couple minutes, I actually did find it. I went to grab it and did not compensate for the fact that things underwater are not exactly where you think they are and I ended up pushing it under a rock. By this time, Jason was right next to me and I went to grab it again. I ended up pushing it even further under the rock to the point where we could see it but could no longer reach it. I had no idea what to do at this point, so Jason told me that I was going to have to make my way back to everyone on the beach and have someone go get a wire hanger or something so we would be able to hook the ring to get it out from under the rock.
Once I made it back and told everyone what had happened, they were somewhat relieved because they thought that one of us had hurt ourselves. They could see us from the beach and had no idea what was going on. After the moment of relief, everyone jumped up to help us. Jack (9 years old) and Adair (11 years old) ran back up to the start of the waterfall so that they could get back in the water and try to help. The next few minutes are a little fuzzy to me as I was totally freaking out. I do remember seeing Jason stand up with something in his hand, I found out later that it was a fishing lure. Beth snapped a picture at that point, but when it was realized that it was not the ring, she put the camera down as it did not appear that the story was going to end well and we probably wouldn’t want to Memorex the moment if that had been the case. I saw Jason stand up in the water and then start swimming toward the waterfall. I found out later that he was swimming to go get the hanger from Brian. He left Jack and Adair at the rock where the ring was and told them to keep their hand on the rock and make sure that they didn’t move. After waiting at the beach for a little bit, I made my way back to where everyone was searching to try to make myself useful. When I got there, everyone was searching in multiple areas and I asked Jason why they were looking all around being that we knew which rock the ring was under. He told me that Jack and Adair had been pulled away by the strong current and lost the rock that the ring was under. I am not quite as tactful as Jason is and I was unable to hold back my snotty remarks at that point. I asked him what would make him think that leaving a 9 and 11 year old to guard my ring was a good idea. Good thing he is a better person than I am and he did not throw his arms in the air and tell me to look for my ring on my own, as that was the reaction that I deserved at that point! The search continued and at this point Jason, Beth, Jack, and Erick had goggles and snorkeling gear that made it a little bit easier to search. Adair and I were sitting off to the side trying to not get in the way and searching the open areas to see if we could see anything. Adair got really upset and started crying and told me that she was sorry that she and Jack lost the rock…I felt really bad that she felt responsible and did my best to console her although I was having a hard time not freaking out myself.
After about 45 minutes, Brian had come over and we decided that it might be best for the kids to go back to shore and just have the adults in the water looking. So Jason, Brian, and I continued the search. Brian was very methodical in the organization of the search and we started to try to find the rock again. Brian and Jason both had on goggles, but I continued to just try to look above water. The rock that it was under was big, flat and dark whereas a lot of the other rocks were smaller, more rounded and moveable. I felt around for a little while and found what I thought was the rock. Brian came over with his goggles and thought that he could see the ring, but after closer inspection we discovered that it wasn’t it. I was starting to feel very defeated at this point, it had been almost two hours that we had been looking. After we had determined that we had the wrong rock, I stayed in the general area because I was fairly positive that we were at least in the right area. Adair had made her way back over to us by this point and she was hanging out with her fingers crossed that her declaration that I was going to regret the tubing adventure would not ultimately come true. I found another rock that looked familiar and I called Jason over to look. He went underwater and moments later, he rose up from the water and raised his hand over his head. In between his fingers, he was holding my ring!!! I screamed and jumped up out of the water and hugged Jason. We both hugged Adair who was in the water with us and I am pretty sure that we were all crying a little bit.
Brian convinced me to give him the ring to put into his pocket, as he was going to take the trail back to the beach rather than going through the water to get back…I didn’t want to let the ring go, but clearly wearing the ring in the river was a BAD idea! Jason and I made our way down the river and met up with Brian, Jacie, and Adair. We went back to our rooms and showered and then met up to hang out. Discussion of the adventure continued as we went to a couple different shops and on a short hike. As we were driving back to the resort, I was thinking about the whole thing and I had to ask if it had really happened. It seemed so unreal that I lost the ring, found it, then it was lost again, but then ultimately found…I am still questioning if it really did happen or it was all just a really bad, really vivid dream. I do know that it really did happen because Jason and I had a lot of bruises, scrapes, and extremely burned backs to prove it. My burn has turned into a tan already, but Jason’s is still a red, blistery, painful mess so he has not yet found the magic or the humor in the story as of yet. I think he will be able laugh about it in about a week or so!
The next day, there was still much discussion of the whole debacle. At breakfast we realized that the painting on the wall was of the exact spot where we had lost the ring, so we snapped a picture (Jason didn’t think it was cute or funny…)
When we went into Grand Marais on Saturday, the story came up a couple times with different people in the stores and galleries we visited. One lady in one of the galleries said, “Wow, that marriage is definitely going to last forever!” I think she’s right!!! We’ll see what Jason says after his scratches, bruises, and burn has healed…
(this picture does not do justice to how red our backs really are...)
