Two Tales of One Weekend...Part 2

So. While Noah and I were enjoying our weekend, Nathan, Asher and Micah were off on their first backpack camping adventure. They left early Saturday morning amid a few tears and trepidation. (In the days leading up to this, it suddenly dawned on Micah that this trip meant spending the night away from me and he wasn't happy about it. Can't be upset with such a sweet sentiment and couldn't completely convince him that his daddy would work, lol.)

(The following is pieced together from their accounts...) They reached their trailhead without incident and set out. They made it about a mile before Micah declared he couldn't carry his pack any further, and Nathan ended up carrying it strapped to his front for the rest of the time. (Fortunately, the pack wasn't heavy...just not the right size for Micah.) They proceeded to hike in about 9.5 miles (according to Micah, which was corroborated by Nathan). Along the way they skipped some stones, got bitten by mosquitoes and saw wild turkeys and a snake. :)

 
 

Having gone past the established campsites in the hopes of finding a more solitary one only to realize that wasn't going to work, they then backtracked to find a campsite. At this point, they were beat and just wanted to set up camp (and most of the sites were full) so shared a site with a couple of fly-fishermen. 

After setting up the tent and dropping their packs, they went nearby to get water to purify. On the walk back from that, the skies opened up and drenched them. Hurrying back to the tent, the boys grabbed their rain gear and an umbrella and huddled under a tree with their packs while Nathan moved the tent (and all its contents) uphill. Did I mention that the site was in a depression? Yeah. Here's what it looked like after Nathan moved the tent:

So. Nathan then got them in the tent and into dry clothes and they all bundled into their sleeping bags to get warm and wait out the storm...for a couple hours. At this point, I'm told, they simply lay there and waited; they didn't play any of the games they'd brought, as they just wanted to get warm and rest. Finally, around 9-9:30ish, Nathan ventured just outside the tent to make dinner on the little camp stove. (The boys say it was still drizzling at this point, so they stayed in the tent.) Then they went to sleep.

The next morning, they made breakfast and chatted a bit with their neighbors before packing up and getting on their way. The boys tell me that they made good time and were in a hurry, as they wanted to get home and were mostly out of food. ;)

And they pulled into the driveway a bit after 4pm on Sunday. ;) We got everyone inside and unpacked and bathed and then did dinner.

To be honest, they were all kinda miserable when they got home. :( But. Now that there's been a bit of distance from it all, Nathan thinks it was a good learning experience and hopes the boys will join him again. Asher says he'd be game but would pick a weekend without rain. Micah says the hike needed to be shorter, the trip needed to be drier and I needed to come. ;)  

Two tales of one weekend...Part 1.

(Sorry I haven't updated sooner. My dying computer is, well, dying...has been for more than a month now. It randomly decides to let me do things. Fortunately, yes, we have my new one. Whew! But. I haven't gotten around to transferring things yet (slowly rearranging things). Gonna work on that! Thanks for bearing with me!)

So. Noah and I had a great mother-son bonding weekend. We hit the store for some snacks. We had pizza for lunch. We went home to watch the first two Lord of the Rings movies. (During this, I even managed to sort and file most of the boys' schoolwork...and am almost caught up...woohoo!) We treated ourselves to dinner and watched a sudden storm take the staff by surprise, sending them running outside to literally chase down their tables and umbrellas as the rain deluged. We worried about whether that same storm had hit our campers (more on that shortly, lol). And we went home to watch the last LOTR movie. Day 1.

Sunday, we went for a bike ride...not terribly far or anything (and less than I have run, for sure) but further than I normally bike since I'm usually the one sticking with Micah. ;)

I must interject here that apparently I really need my boot camp class, lol. Dude. Noah's fit. Darn preteen boy. ;) I'm not horribly unfit, honest, and that boy was smoking me. In the end, he took pity on me and insisted that I take the lead so he could mosey behind me rather than keep waiting for me. Awesome.

(I'd like to interrupt yet again to comment on how unfair this is. ;) I'm assuming most of Noah's fitness is from swim team. But. He hasn't actually been in a pool (other than once or twice recreationally) in about 2.5 months. He hasn't done any real exercise over the summer and is able to easily maintain this all. If I stop running for two weeks I feel like I'm basically starting from scratch again. Boys.) ;)

We ended our bike ride at Matador for lunch then biked home. We then went to the theater to (re)watch Star Trek Into Darkness. We weren't home long after that when the rest of our gang showed up for some unpacking and bathing before heading out to dinner (being as we hadn't done our weekly grocery shopping yet) then crashing at home to watch Star Trek First Contact.

Despite the fact that I didn't get any pictures of Noah and me (though I did try, lol), it was good. ;)

Weekend bonding

Three of my guys took off this morning for their first backpack camping adventure. Just overnight, but the trail they're planning is about 15 miles round trip. They were excited and a little nervous. ;)

They decided to tackle this back in May when we were in the Great Smoky Mountains. Nathan and Micah chatted with a backpacker making his way from Florida to Maine and an adventure was born. They've been gathering gear ever since, lol.

I'll fill you in when they get home. ;)

In the meantime, Noah and I both opted not to join in this particular outing...both to lessen/simplify the amount of gear needed and because, well, it's just not our thing. ;)

Instead, I'm spending the weekend having some quality time with my preteen...while he still wants to spend the time with me. ;) We're doing a Lord of the Rings marathon and will go on a bike ride or two. (Taking advantage of the opportunity to do things we can't always do with Micah about, lol.) There will also be plenty of food involved, I'm sure. It suits our introverted ways just dandy, lol.

Five on Friday

1. I've survived two weeks of boot camp now. (Yay, me!!) Don't ask me to lift or hold anything for you today or tomorrow, though. My arms are noodles. ;)

2. Micah's making great progress at his swim lessons. It's really rather amazing to watch. I should have taken video at the start of the summer so he could see the progress. (Of course, this is not to say that we're ready to be done with swim lessons just yet, lol. I anticipate at least one more summer of lessons to firm up Micah's abilities and get him to a point where he can actually tread water and not just float on his back. It would also be dandy if we could get to a point of self-awareness...such that he could recognize on his own when he's actually doing what the instructor is asking and when he's, um, not. But. He's doing it with a smile.)

3. On Monday, I went to an awesome (and free) Mother Runner Party down in Denver with my pal Molly. We had a great time and got pretty fabulous goodie bags. Some of the items I was most excited about:

• free socks (three pair!) from Sof Sole
• a tube of Nuun electrolyte drink tablets (to date, I've just done the water route but I'm actually stoked to give these a try...especially with more summer running and working out)
• plenty of goodies from Hylands (Hylands also makes the miracle teething tablets and motion sickness tablets that we've sworn by, but I honestly didn't realize they make things for leg cramps and colds, too)
• a whole jar of chocolate Nuttzo spread (omg...seriously excited about this one, as I got Asher to eat it spread on a bagel and that's huge! The more opportunities to get actually nutritious things into him the better! I'm told the owner of this brand got started after adopting two boys who had only ever eaten porridge...this was her attempt to get them more nutritious food without completely taking their systems by storm. Awesome.)
• a sample of Skinfare (after reading more about this, I totally want a tube of each! I tried some on mosquito bites last night and was delighted when it truly did stop the itching! It also healed up (overnight) a couple blisters I'd gotten. Can't wait to see what else I can use it for!)

There were plenty of other goodies, too (many of which I already use or have used) and lots of prizes and chatting and food and wine. Altogether, awesome. :)

4. Another great thing that came out of the Mother Runner Party was motivation. We were all asked to put our name and a goal on our name tags and some of those got shared during the presentation. One woman is aiming to run 40 races in her 40th year...another is aiming to run 40 races by her 40th birthday. While Molly and I both realized that we probably can't make either of those things happen for ourselves, making out a list of 40 things to tackle (not necessarily just race related) before our 40th birthdays seems like a pretty darn good idea. I'm working on it and will share soon. ;) 

5. Yes, we're back at our last session of homeschooling for this academic year. July's pretty light, though, as we're focusing on just finishing up certain curricula. I'm getting ready to do my somewhat annual posts about our curriculum plan for the coming year...stay tuned. 

If you're local...

...we have a few Craigslist items up for grabs. Please check 'em out and reply via the listing if you're interested: 

Hoover self-propelled vacuum

Wenzel Biscayne 12x14 Screen House

Kohler cast iron sink

Mesh-back office chair

REI Half Dome 4 person tent + footprint

Burley Solo trailer

Nicklaus golf clubs

Thanks!