Whitewater CHAOS!!!!

We stopped for lunch half way through our trip to thaw out and dry out! The water was 47 degrees and luckily, Jack was in a complete wetsuit - it was the only way he would go - and the rest of us had on booties and spray jackets. But we were still freezing on the first leg of the trip. I mean, we were rafting in melting snow! So after lunch, we headed back up the Colorado to do the lower Shoshone rapids. We put in and were all settled in our boat. Gus put Scott and Matt, another guy, in the front and Katy, Erica and Elena (Matt's 16 yr old daughter) behind them. Then it was me, Jack and Spencer and Gus was in the very back. It was great and the scenery was beautiful!!!! Then we approached the first rapid of this second leg. Gus was giving instructions and said paddle hard through this; no problem. Well, Gus was wrong even though he had done this rapid a thousand times with no issues!!! We went down into the first rapid deep and it was then that Scott and Matt got thrown together as the float sort of crumpled them like a taco! Katy, Erica and Elena kind of folded on top of them. The boys landed on top of them and I got thrown to the left off balance and completely fell out of the boat!!! Gus flew about 6 feet in the air completely out of the boat!!! Paddles and people were flying everywhere!!! It was absolutely hysterical! I lost my paddle reaching back for the rope on the side of the raft and I was trying to climb back in but couldn't until I realized Scott had a hold of my bootie and wouldn't let go!! Erica and Jack are screaming "Mom, Mom" and crying and Katy is looking me square in the face holding on to my life jacket saying, "I've got you" but she can't pull me into the boat!! I'm yelling at Scott "let go of my foot!" and he finally realized what he was holding laughing! I'm flutter kicking in 47 degree water and Gus finally comes down and lands where we were sitting. He grabs my vest and 1,2,3, I am in the boat!! However, we are floating downstream with four paddles instead of 8!!!! And more rapids are coming and Gus has no paddle! So he grabbed Elena's and we grabbed an extra out of the water and another boat gave us an extra one and we were good to go!!! It was absolutely hysterical and chaos all at the same time for about 30 seconds!!!! Erica and Jack calmed down ... Erica thought I had gone under the boat because she couldn't see me so once she realized I was there she was fine. We have laughed the rest of the day and today about this! And poor Gus said he was going to be the laughing stock for a couple days! We finished rafting and went through a bunch more that were equally as bad or worse but we definitely held on tight and stayed in the boat! Gus said he has never hit that rapid like that and couldn't believe it happened! Even he was laughing by the end of the day! So again, we had an adventure and great memories to laugh about! Scott bought me a shirt that has a skeleton arm holding a paddle that says, "I survived the Colorado River!" He thought it was only appropriate for me to have that shirt!!!!! LOL!!!!! We can't wait to do it again!!!! On one part, we slowed into an "Eddy" and the kids got to jump out willingly into a calm part and swim. Katy and Elena jumped in head first and Spencer and Erica jumped in after and they have rights to say they willingly swam in the Colorado River!!! They said you were numb as soon as you jumped in!!!