Saturday: rock climbing, botanical gardens

This morning started out with a rock climbing competition!  Both kids participated, and I was so proud of both of them.

This was Joshua's first competition.  Technically, he did fine.  Out of seven routes he topped two and zoned two.  I was super impressed with two things though: 1) His perseverance.  He took a few breaks throughout the 2.5 hours, but he tried a lot of those routes a lot of times.  Over and over.  2) His ability to talk to people.  Several people gave him some pointers and he came away with a few new friends.

Isaac did a great job technically!  It was similar to the last competitions in that he flashed six of the routes and needed a few tries on the last route.  After getting those done he tried some of the other routes.  I enjoy watching him because he is methodical.  He also got a compliment after falling off the white #3 youth about smiling as he was getting up.  I think he was happy that he got farther than the previous time, but it was still nice to hear.

My favorite pictures are when they are both on the wall though.

We had chosen the first session of the day so that it wouldn't be so busy.  Probably still a good choice, but it meant we had seven hours before awards.  After a snack and a small lunch (because we just had a snack), we went to the botanical gardens.

This was a great choice!!  I had read there were tours at 11 and 12:45, but we just missed the 12:45 window.  We stopped in the visitor center for a map anyway, and the website was somewhat incorrect.  The tours are individual tours whenever you want with a docent.  In a golf cart.  For free.  Sign me up!  It was a warm day, so not having to walk the whole thing was nice.  The docent was very knowledgeable and was able to tell us all sorts of things we would have otherwise been ignorant of.  A kids' garden is going in and so she gave us some plants to taste and smell.  We got to go inside the cow barn.  It was amazing.

This got us to about 2:30, and we went back to the gym to read and rest.  We found a nice cubby and relaxed for a while.  We walked to dinner, which wasn't amazing, and then back to the gym.  Finally...award time.

Unsurprisingly but still excitingly, Isaac got first place in the beginner category!  The others had already left, so he had to stand there by himself.

He got a nice plaque.  He got some other swag too, but he was most excited about the plaque.

And then we went home.  We were exhausted.  (There was a band outside though.  Ben said there had been music since 10am.  The live band probably started around 5pm and didn't stop until 10:15pm.  I don't want to be a downer because it's fun to have fun things, but it was a overwhelming when we just wanted to crash.)