The kids always love it when they can bring friends along for a climbing day.
This summer, it's been pretty easy to find people to go along with us.
Even A got out there and did some climbing!
I'm not totally sure why Peanut was so worn out. The other two had been climbing hard, but we still can't get him to try anything more than the bouldering section. I think this little guy may have a fear of heights.
But he is a great cheerleader. I finally tried climbing with the kids last time and on my first wall, when I was about to give up about 10 feet from the top because my arms were starting to shake, it was his cheering, telling me to, "Go, Mama, go!" that got me to finish. I just couldn't listen to that cute little voice and then let him down.
I think we ended up doing more school-on-the-go this week than at home. This semester, the kids are taking art and piano lessons, swim lessons or conditioning, and we had field trips two different days. Thank goodness for audio books. (This week, we're listening to Percy Jackson's Greek Gods in preparation for diving into ancient Greek history in a couple weeks. It's been a pretty fun crash course in all the myths and legends.)
First field trip: Bug and Bean had a programming class at Intel on Tuesday and while they were doing that, Peanut and I explored the little museum they have onsite.
While we were on that side of the bay, we also spent a couple hours in the NASA Ames Research Center. I didn't even realize the Bay Area had any NASA stuff, but there is a fun little museum and the kids were fascinated by the videos of life on the international space station and the Mars rover. Not quite the Kennedy Space Center, but it was still interesting.
Then, on Friday, we went to see Elephant and Piggie, the play. Peanut LOVES the Elephant and Piggie books and makes me check out several every time we go to the library, so when I saw that the Bay Area Children's Theatre was doing this, I had to get tickets. He was so excited, and leaned over to let me know every time he recognized one of the storylines. It was a cute play.
On the way home, we stopped by the rock gym again. These two had come along for the play, which they thought was cute, but they were probably about 5 years older than all the other kids in the audience. The promise of going rock climbing on the way home made up for it, though, and they had a good hour before I dragged them away so we could face the Friday traffic that was already backing up.
Finally made this girl's dreams come true. She's been begging to go rock climbing since camp this summer, and her Uncle gave her a day at the gym for Christmas, so I made it happen.
The closest one to us is in Fremont, which is just far enough to have made me not do this sooner, but it's a pretty impressive place and the kids had so much fun.
(Bug joined her, because of course this monkey didn't want to miss a chance to scale walls.)
This place has 9 auto belay courses, so the kids can just clip in and climb without me needing to help, which made it fun for all of us.
Peanut didn't have any interest, so we mostly just watched them, but he did get brave enough to go a few feet up the beginner route in the bouldering section. I was proud of him for at least trying it. Maybe if I could get him to wear some shoes besides Crocs he might be willing to climb even more. Because we will be back. They had a special on a 3 month membership, and the kids were having so much fun that I decided we'd make a commitment for the winter. In case it decides to rain more this year, we'll be set with somewhere to be active.
If you've been to Girls Camp, you might know that song. Although, after going to camp in 3 different areas, I've learned that they don't all sing the same songs, and even if they do, usually there's some little tweak to the tune or a few words, which means I'm singing the songs all wrong these days.
Bean and I got to go to camp with the girls from church and just like last year, it was so fun for both of us. I went to work at the waterfront, which meant getting to work with 3 awesome ladies all week, jumping in an icy lake at 6 in the morning, and sitting on a hot dock all day. It was a great week.
The water was pretty cold, but early in the morning, the air was even colder, so the early morning swim wasn't too bad. The first morning, I stayed out to take pictures, but the other two days that we did it, I got in with everyone else. Bean signed up one of those mornings, too.
The older girls had the right idea and came down to kayak along side the swimmers. There were a lot of kayaks and canoes for the girls to use during their water times.
Bean's group all learned how to paddle a canoe
(she was pretty proud that she got to demonstrate for the other girls. Guess the canoeing we did with the Activity Days group a couple years ago stuck :))
And then, a couple days later, they got to use those skills for their hike. They canoed across the lake and then hiked to another lake where they had lunch and swam for awhile.
But tubing was probably the most anticipated adventure for the week.
These girls couldn't wait to get behind the boat.
And they all want to go faster and faster, until they'd catch a little too much air and flip. We watched a lot of girls get thrown off that thing.
Back in the boat, where it's safer.
I snuck away from the waterfront one morning to hang out with the first years at the rock wall. Since I'd never been to this particular camp, I was really excited to get to see what else the girls got to do during the week, and watching this particular area was surprisingly emotional.
The man who ran this area did a great job moving the girls from a trust fall, to a team building wall climb.
And then on to the climbing wall. These girls were all 11 or 12 years old, and for a lot of them, this was a week of firsts and facing fears, and when it came to trusting their bodies, and the ropes, and the people working with them, it was hard. But watching them do hard things and push through the fear and tears and get to the top of those walls was inspiring. I got choked up a couple times when I watched a girl who swore she couldn't do, but pushed until she did and then seeing that look of accomplishment on her face.
At the end of the week, I got to watch Bean do her own climbing. She came running to find me right before they shut down the wall for the week. She'd been racing with a few of the other girls for hours, and wanted to show me how fast she could get to the top. And then, that last climb she did ended up being the fastest yet. Only one of the men made it up faster that day. It was fun getting to see her find something new that she enjoys, and fun that she wanted to share it with me. She's definitely not a kid who needs me at things like this--she was off having the time of her life all week and I barely saw her except when her group was assigned to be down at the water and in passing at meals, as it should be--but it made my day that she still wanted to show me when she had mastered a new skill.
The final activity at the climbing area is repelling down "the rock". It is about 130 feet tall, and it was the reason I really wanted to check out that part of camp. We could see this from the dock, and I really wanted to try it. I'd never been repelling, and am so glad I got to.
Bean loved it, too. She got to go a couple times.
And when you finish, you have two choices of how to get back up. The Indiana Jones way features a metal ladder up the side of a big rock and this swinging bridge. The cave way means squeezing yourself through a tiny crevice at one point and some serious bouldering. Bean did both, I wasn't brave enough to do the metal ladder, so I stuck with the crevice (and for a second, thought I might literally be stuck.)
However, I got to go down, and then up again, this really steep rock trail once or twice a day.
When I agreed to work at the waterfront, everyone kept telling me that there was a climb to get down there. I'd heard the same thing about our water area in NC, and that had ended up being a grassy hill with wooden stairs cut into the side of it and really no big deal, so I don't think I took people seriously.
And then I saw this climb and realized that they weren't kidding about the climb! It was a little scary the first day, when we had chairs on our backs, backpacks on our fronts, and the two veterans were carrying a cooler and several other bags of stuff down, but it got easier by the end.
Waterfront at it's best. (We didn't have any actual near drownings, although we did rescue a few water bottles, clothing items, and other random things that fell off the dock. At times, we had as many as six certified guards down there, between the other waterfront ladies, and the older girls who actually work as guards in the summer--I am not one of them, but have done my share of lifeguarding in my day and can still do a perfect stride jump into the water without losing my hat or sunglasses. It was a fun place to hang out for the day and I loved getting to know some of the other water loving people from church.
Girls camp as an adult isn't much like girls camp as a teen, but it continues to be one of my favorite things to do in the summer. And I'm glad Bean loves it as much as I do. Maybe I can get her to do a post about her perspective of the week, too.
