Tuesday: outdoor rock climbing

Isaac got a gift to go outdoor rock climbing for his birthday.  The weather this week has been beautiful and so we ended up doing a last minute trip on Tuesday.  We went to Grand Ledge, which is about 1.5 hours east of Holland.  There is one ledge maybe .25-.5 miles long available to climb, but it's a great option for something close by.

We started on the nose.  It was an interesting spot because you could go up the middle (flake), the left side, or the right side and they all climb differently.

This was my second climb and I really wanted to use the nice step that my left foot is in...so I did.

I like this one because it looks like I have skills - the foot holds aren't very visible.

Then we moved to the corner just to the right.  This was an interesting one because our guide, Chris, had never climbed it before.  It took me three tries, but Isaac got it on the first try.  Chris also got it on the first try and he just sailed right up it.  You can tell that he has climbed just a bit more than we have.

We took a break for lunch and then Chris set up three different ropes.  I only climbed the first one - I got to the top the first time and stalled out the second time.  Isaac climbed all three and then did the first one again.

Isaac wanted to climb one more place with a crack, so we moved over there for the last climb.  It looked hard and we were running out of time, so I didn't climb it.

Take-aways:
*The setting the anchors took a lot more time than we expected.  Perhaps if we had a plan at the beginning this could have been streamlined a bit since I can also belay, but we were there for several hours and had a bunch of good climbs, but not tons of climbs.  (This can be a bit of a positive thing too, as it could be easy to get too tired.)

*We would absolutely need more training (and gear) before rope climbing by ourselves outside, but now that I know where it is we could probably boulder by ourselves with just a bit of instruction.  That went from feeling overwhelming to possible.

*Isaac said he enjoyed it more than he expected.

*The time flew by - it is a lovely location with quite a bit of shade

Thursday: Sandy Pines

 We visited Uncle Lee and Aunt Susan today.  

We started with mini golf.  The kids were a bit crazy, but not too much.  There was one hole where Isaac said he was going to go over the edge, through the wood chips, and then back on the green.  And then he did it!  It was almost a hole in one too, but he didn't quite get that.

Then we went on the ropes course.  We weren't on it for very long, but it's a fun course!

And we ended with lunch, ice cream, and a short drive around in the golf cart.  It was lovely to catch up with them, as normal.

Wednesday: life

While we're slowing getting over our jet lag, it is taking evey one a while.  I, not having a nap yesterday, went to bed at 9:30pm.

We visited a new playground today.  Joshua does love his playgrounds and it was kind of the only time this week it would work.  We snuck there between rain.  The kids enjoyed it, but the overall rating was just ok.  (I thought it was going to be quite a bit higher.)  It was a mix of natural playground and normal playground elements.

I went to get groceries after nap time.  It was a big trip, but we needed a lot of things.

I still haven't finished unpacking or laundry from the trip.  Well, all the laundry is clean and half has been sorted.  The kitchen is..a mess.  I keep trying to catch up, but it's summer time and there are so many fun things to do!  I did get the groceries put away, so I consider that a win.

Monday: strawberries

After all having eye appointments, we went strawberry picking.  The picking was only ok.  Even the end of the rows had a lot of moldy strawberries, so not only did we need to find strawberries but we also needed to make sure they were it decent condition.  Between the three of us we ended up with two buckets, more than I was expecting, but not as much as I was hoping.

 

Saturday: old pictures

It was a pretty normal day, so here are a few pictures from before vacation that didn't make the blog.  I guess they were both from the day before we left.

Black belt ceremony...I made it to the black belt ceremony for Emily and Will.  It made the day really busy, but I was glad that I went.  There aren't many black belts left, so I was the only normal student that represented on the mat.

Then we also had a family picture from Isaac's graduation.

Friday: home

Hmm, so I guess I'll start at midnight Friday, which I think I actually skipped due to a time change.  I think the taxi for our last flight took forever because I kept partially waking up, seeing a city outside, thinking it was GR, and then five minutes later we were still not closer to the ground.  I did get a little nap in here, about thirty minutes, so at this point I think I had about thirty minutes of sleep in about 24 hours.  The ride home went fine.

The house was all nice and clean for about two minutes when we got home!  Everyone slowly got ready for bed.  Isaac wasn't feel great so I helped him a bit, Joshua had to go to the bathroom and so he took a while, and I wanted to make sure everyone was tucked in.  It was about 2:45am before I got to sleep.  Of course, Ben and I both woke up rather early.  So that was four hours of sleep.

We had a pretty easy day.  Some Lego, some unpacking, and I picked up groceries. 

Nap time didn't go so well for me.  I wasn't feeling super tired and then when I was almost asleep I was woken up (by a cat?) and couldn't get back to sleep.

I made pizza for dinner and at the end of dinner I was done.  I could feel myself getting grumpier by the minute.  I did the minimum amount of cleanup, went in the bedroom, and closed the door.  "Just a little nap," I told myself, "I'll wake up at 8 to read to Joshua."  But then Joshua needed some help.  Then Isaac wanted to take a shower in our shower.  My health tracker says the nap started around 7:30, and we all know how this is going to end.

At 11pm, Ben came in to go to bed and I woke up.  Whoops!  I missed an on-line meeting with friends, reading to Joshua, and taking care of the pizza for tomorrow's lunch.  Luckily, Ben dealt with all of that.  I woke up enough to actually get ready for bed and then pretty much went right back to sleep.  There is a page in my book that I'm pretty sure I've read about four times now because I kept falling asleep in the middle.  I slept until 5am Saturday and called it good.

In other news, we finally opened our first Lego set with paper bags!  Someone asked during the tour about paper bags and the leaders were actually quite surprised that we still had plastic because most of the new sets now have paper.  We don't always make sets right away, but we often make them reasonably soon so we were also surprised.

Friday: TS Amanda

 It is worth nothing that tropical storm Amanda is in the Pacific!  It's going to max out as a tropical storm without hitting any land.