Sharing Adventures

One of Bean's birthday gifts was a backpack, with the promise that we'd take her on an overnight hiking trip, just the three of us, spending time with our now teenage daughter. We figure we need to enjoy the time with her while she's still excited about weekend trips with her parents. It may not last forever, and there will be bumps along the way, I'm sure, but that's why now is the time to build the good memories.

And this one will go down in the books as a great memory for all of us. About 17 miles of hiking in two days, beautiful scenery all around us, and good times together.

We had to make some last minute changes to our plans because of forest fires in the area of Yosemite we'd wanted to hike, but we found a good alternative that may have been even better for a first backpacking trip. We parked on Tioga Rd, and hiked about 2 miles in to the Yosemite Creek Campground. It wasn't nearly as far as we'd thought we'd be hiking before we set up camp, but we made up for it after we ditched our packs.

The rest of the day was a 12.5 mile hike to the top of Yosemite Falls and back. Easier because we didn't have our big packs, but still a physically challenging day for all of us.

But the landscape was incredible. We hiked through shady, fern covered forests along the creek, 

climbed over granite boulders and cliffs (more than we should have because of a few detours we took off the path),

and walked through sandy fields. And we kept reminding this girl of ours that we can do hard things. She was loving it all, in spite of the blisters, and getting a little tired the last couple miles. This girl is strong and determined, and also a talker who really enjoyed having our undivided attention for miles and miles of walking. We heard more than a couple Studio C sketches recited as we walked, along with stories and lots of observations.

The view of the falls and valley from up above was incredible, and terrifying, all at once. I don't know what it is about being up high with my kids, but I just can't do it without feeling sick. I don't really have issues with heights on my own, but even the open upstairs hallway in our old house used to make me feel sick when I was carrying one of the kids. I'm just can't keep the image of them going over the edge out of my mind. So this wasn't totally fun for me, but we got to see it, and rest for a bit, and then started back so we could make it to camp before dark. 

Back at camp, we pretty much just wanted to eat and go to bed. All the talk of looking at stars and soaking our feet in the creek was forgotten. I didn't even care too much about dinner, but we did cook up the mac'n'cheese we'd brought, and even made a fire, which was no easy feat with all the damp wood from a rainstorm a couple days before. We didn't last long, though and were all in bed by 8:30. Of course, as soon as we laid down, we saw flickering just outside our tent--the fire, that was so difficult to get started, decided to be equally difficult to put out. The coals reignited twice before it finally went out for the night. And then, just as we were all drifting off, a couple of guys walked into our camp, talking pretty loudly. We're pretty sure they didn't know anyone was there and whether they were going to take firewood, or our actual belongings, we don't know, but when Daddy-o called out from the tent, it startled them and they left quickly. Finally, we got to go to sleep.

The victorious hikers! Second day was pretty easy. We all felt a lot better after a good nights sleep, and only had 2 miles to hike back to the car. 

I'm so glad that we made this happen. Having three kids can be loud, hectic, and complicated, but getting to spend time with them one at a time makes it easy to enjoy them. Our Bean is an awesome person--she's strong, funny, creative, passionate, determined, and a million other things that we sometimes lose sight of in the day-to-day rush of life. This weekend, we got to slow down, breathe deeply, soak up some nature, and just enjoy our firstborn child.

It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye

It’s felt like we’ve been saying goodbye for weeks, but Tuesday was pretty rough. The kids all had their last day of school, 

which meant I had to fight tears through the elementary school hallway, saying goodbye to so many great teachers and friends we’ve made over the years. I didn’t even get out at the middle school because I didn’t want to deal with goodbye’s, but it didn’t matter because watching Bean’s teachers come running over to hug her before she left got me all choked up again. She’s been so sad about leaving behind her friends and teachers.

 Bug isn’t quite as emotional about it, but he’s had a fabulous experience this year, too.

Then we got to come home to a yard full of kids. Within an hour or so, there were 6 extra kids running wild through the forest with our three, having their final adventures. And then the goodbyes started. First, the Perez family had to take off. 

Then, we had dinner with our neighbors at Jason’s Deli, a surprise apple pie with friends from church who came by for a final goodbye, and then around 9:30, the kids had to say their final farewell to V & M. It wasn’t the happiest of times and we spent the next hour trying to get overly tired, very sad kids to bed so we could get back to packing and cleaning.

And we got to get up the next morning to continue the long process. Actually, it was a lot longer and messier than we’d hoped because the final packing up and cleaning always takes longer than you think. I had it in the back of my head that it would be nice if we could leave by 8, but probably wouldn’t make it out until 9. And, 6 hours later, we finally hit the road.

It could have gone much worse. The kids were not happy to get up and Bug was actually refusing to get out of bed at all and I knew that we were in for a difficult day, but then the Perez’ surprised us and showed up to help us take care of whatever we needed and seeing friends was just the right boost we all needed—kids stopped crying, we got to work on the cleaning, and we had someone to hand all the stuff off to that we couldn’t take with us.

I had been worried that having to say goodbye again was going to be too hard, but it was worth it for the happy distraction, and we just said see you soon—now to find a way to make it happen.

We had neighbors stop by all morning on their way to work to wish us well, which was both great, and really emotional for us all. 

 

Our containers were picked up (Note to self: Do NOT pack all the books in one container next time—it looked like the forklift might tip over with that one,) the house was clean, we stopped next door at Mary’s to do some last minute printing, said what we thought was the last goodbye, except for the house. The kids had been waiting until we were alone to say their goodbyes and get a good cry in—and cry they did! It was pretty intense—it’s really hard to leave this home we’ve all loved for so long. And when we finally did try to leave, we had issues with the garage door closing and had to run back over to Mary’s place for a battery. 

And FINALLY, we got a bunch of crying kids, a depressed dog, and a clueless guinea pig in the car, but we still had to stop at the post office and for a really late lunch. Luckily, feeding the kids made them stop crying, so they didn’t actually cry all the way out of town. It’s pretty surreal, though, that we drove out of Charlotte for the last time for who knows how long.

The Changing of the Season

We got lucky with a really pleasant day for the start of winter and decided that the perfect way to enjoy it was to head to the new ropes course out at the White Water Center.

The kids had so much fun!

Being part monkey, this was right up their alley.

There's quite a variety of challenges as you make your way through the course.

This girl was right at home.

I thought it was pretty fun, too. Definitely a different type of workout than I'm used to!

We feel pretty lucky that we live somewhere that has these surprisingly warm winter days, but that we also get a little snow here and there. It's the perfect mix.

We'll be back for more rope play for sure!

My Foam Roller is My New Best Friend and Other Running News

13.1 miles. That is how far I ran today. Or, mostly ran. I get to cross that one off my bucket list. After my painful 11 mile run two weeks ago, I had to give up my goal of 10 minute miles and just pray that I'd be able to finish it, preferably without walking the last 5 miles.

And I did it. At the four mile mark, I told my friend, Flori, that I was feeling good. Of coure, that meant a few minutes later, my stinkin' knee had to start acting up. But the Advil I took right before the race helped take the edge off and I was able to keep going with only 3 or 4 walking breaks throughout the whole thing.

(Here's Flori passing me up in the last couple miles. And notice the "Stop Ahead" sign on the right--I was wishing I could oblige.)

One of those walks was for this monster hill (I think it was worse than it looks--it was longer, too):This course was WAY hillier than I'd realized it would be and in the last 2 miles, there were a couple really brutal ones. From the sounds of it (and the people I saw), hardly anyone managed to run up this thing. Even at the beginning of a run, I would have a hard time, but this was over 11 miles into the race.

And then there was the hill at the finish. We hit the 13 mile mark, and the last tenth of a mile was straight up a hill to the finish. We'd seen it before we started, and my heart had sunk. I just really wanted to finish strong and sprint into the end, but with that hill at the end, I figured I'd be lucky to even be walking across the finish line.

But when I saw the small crowd of people cheering everyone on, and my neighbors, who had just watched their wife/mother finish her first half marathon were still standing there to cheer me on as well, and I realized there was no way I could walk up that hill. So I pushed past. And then I saw the course timers looking down at their papers, and when they looked up and started yelling, "Come on, Kimberly! You can do it! You're right there!", I got so choked up I could barely see the finish line. It is so amazing what having a few people to encourage you can do when you are totally spent, have been in pain for 9 miles, and just didn't think you had anything left in you. I sprinted to that finish--it was probably slower than my running in the beginning, but I felt so powerful!

I didn't make 10 minute miles, but I finished in 2:22:34, which was less than 11 minute miles, and I'm pretty happy with that. I have to say thank you to my awesome running partner, Flori, who has kept me going these last few months even when I would have rather rolled back over and gone back to sleep. And to my equally awesome husband (who would have been there at the finish line if we hadn't had a schedule conflict with Bean) who stayed up until 2 a.m. last night fixing my iPod which at 10 p.m. wouldn't sync with the computer and then got stuck in an unusable state. I was really upset at the idea of not being able to run with my newly organized playlist. There were a few hills out there that I did run up that I owe to Coldplay, U2 and EMF--I really did feel unbelievable!

And now, I just feel like taking a long nap.

Will I ever do this again, I have no idea--the high at the end was close to what I felt after my second, drug-free, childbirth. I can't believe my very human, flawed body is capable of such amazing things and there's a part of me that just likes to keep finding ways to push it and prove to myself that it can do so much more than I'd ever thought.

And then there is another part of me that would still like to have these same knees when I'm 40.