Breezeway Stage 1 aka No Poop Allowed!

We spent this past weekend finishing up stage 1 of the breezeway remodel. It's a really akward space to photograph but here is it almost at the beginning, dark wood, wood paneling and falling down ceiling texture. Craig had already taken off some odd fake support pieces but you can see where they attached in the upper corner. And the possible asbestos tiles were removed before we moved in almost 5 years ago but their lines remained.

This is after Craig

• took the texture off the ceiling
• primed everything
• painted ceiling and trim white
• painted walls gray

Then I was up. I laid the main tiles Saturday afternoon and Craig helped me cut the rest and place them after the kids went to bed. It is not a square room to say the least (he had a heck of a time leveling that door) which made for a few annoying cuts but working together we got it done by 10pm which made me happy.

Also, funny story (don't you love diy stories that start out that way). We've had this tile in the basement ever since the bathroom project. After I used it there and liked it, I knew I wanted to get more matching tile for this room and since it was on sale and I was worried the pattern would be gone, we got it then, knowing we wouldn't use it for a while. Imagine my surprise when I opened the new box only to discover it was a different pattern. So I had half a box of tile that matched my bathroom and 2 boxes of a similar color scheme but very different pattern. Oh crap! Luckily, I really liked the new stuff, it had bits of grey but also more tan and I think it looked even better in this space than the old stuff. But I was still short about half a box. We tried thinking of a pattern that wouldn't look awkward but eventually Craig ran to Home Depot. And as luck would have it, they not only had it in stock (we had ordered this online) but they had some tiles you could buy loose. He bought all but the last one and we were only out about $15 in the end.  I'm just glad I looked at all three boxes before I had already laid the old. And that the new stuff matched my wall color, because I had color matched it to the old and there is no way Craig was going to repaint if it didn't go.

Then it was time to grout. Because apparently, grouting is what I do when I am 5 months pregnant. And apparently, I always steal Craig's clothes to do it, since I think I am wearing the same shirt of his in both pictures. But it makes sense. I have a very limited maternity wardrobe and there is no way I would risk getting grout on my one pair of maternity shorts. Those things have to last until September at least! But this time. I had more "help" overseeing my work

 

But as of yesterday afternoon:

I love it so far! We still need to trim out the door, put a new light switch and outlet in and then figure out the organizational part to help with the functionality. And I'd love a new light fixture. I know pineapples are a symbol of hospitality but it's not really my style so how about I just say "Welcome" when I open the door. But already it is so much brighter and cleaner. I'm teaching the kids to be very vigilant about shutting the doors because for some reason, the chickens love this space and want nothing more than to poop in it. Which was annoying before but it now strictly forbidden. Because even with a pineapple on the ceiling, poop isn't welcoming to guests. 

Weaving Fun

Lucy has been asking to "sew" for a little while now which fits right in with my ideal. I don't really want to do a bunch of cutesty but pointless crafts if we can do make something worthwhile and beautiful. That said, she's only just turned five so our options are limited. Luckily, she considers everything from sewing machine work to crocheting "sewing" so I've been keeping my eyes open for a fun but simple project we could do together. I kept seeing weaving projects on pinterest and they were all almost what I wanted, but not quite or exactly what I wanted but the directions were not in English so I just decided to wing it. And it worked!

I made a simple loom with a thin piece of cardboard. This is the bottom of a shoe box but I think a cereal box would work well for a slightly larger loom. I wanted to keep it small so we could finish before her 5 yr old engine ran out of steam. I glued thin strips of the same cardboard to the top and bottom to help lift the yarn off the backing but I don't think that was completely necessary, especially if you keep the yarn loose.

Then I cut notches on the top and bottom and wound the base (warp?) yarn around those notches and taped it to the back at the beginning and the end. It probably would have been helpful to take a picture of that but I didn't.

Then I tied on the fun (weft?) yarn on to the top, added a piece of tape to create an easy to find and hard to unravel end and off Lucy went. We had done a simple paper weaving project a few days earlier so I could illustrate the over/under concept. Even so, I was worried that it would be confusing for her in the yarn since its a lot harder to see but she didn't have any issues.

I used this particular yarn because it was leftover from my stash and she loves pink but it turned out to be a really fun choice since it created stripes without the need to switch colors. And she started estimating how many stripes of one color it would be before the next color came which added in a bit of math fun.

The only things I needed to help her once she got started was pushing up the yarn to keep it snug, keeping the outer bands loose (the tendency is to pull to tight and the project gets narrower) and tie a new piece of yarn if she ran out. With 10 notches, she was always starting a row with an "over" and she quickly learned this but if she did accidentally start with an "under" it just undid the last row and she started again. No biggie.

When she reached the end, I cut the back strips and tied them together in groups of two and using a yarn needle, tucked any extra side pieces of yarn (from adding new weft yarn) in. Then she trimmed them to the length she wanted. And despite the picture above, she was really pleased with the result and begged me to take her picture! This was just after a long afternoon of swimming and she's already in pajamas here but she was determine to finish before bedtime despite to being exhausted.

I think she did a great job. It took about 5 sessions over 3 days. While that is pretty quick, this is really the first project she's done that really had to stop and come back to so many times and I'm proud of her for sticking with it. Goodness knows I don't always do that with my handicrafts! So overall, I think its a great beginning handicraft.

And the result makes a perfect blanket for a pony in a magna-tile castle!

A Mother's Daybook - June 24th

Doing - Not much and yet a lot. By that I mean I felt like we were really busy last week but I'm not sure what we were busy doing. I barely even did anything for Father's Day. I called my dad and left a message and the kid's made Craig cards (in fact, I think Lucy ended up giving him six because she kept making them and couldn't decide which was her favorite). No cute t-shirts with car racing massage paths or mustache themed key dishes here. In fact, the poor guy spent his day painting our breezeway and then helping me give a chicken a sitz bath (ah, the glamorous life of a homeowner!) I do feel a little bad we didn't do more but then again, we just aren't big gift or (non-liturgical) holiday people. I take that back, we did have brownies and ice cream. I never turn down an excuse for chocolate or ice cream.

Planning and Preparing - For Kindergarten. I feel like I say that every one of these but I keep bringing the start date forward. I've just (re)learned lately that Lucy does NOT do well without some sort of school schedule going. Which is a bit ridiculous for a 5 year old but these past few weeks with her I dropped table time, math and reading in lieu of more free play time and the result has not been a success. As in, I'm about to wring this child's neck not good. She has many wonderful gifts that God will use for his glory. Just keep telling yourself that, MacKenzie!

Reading - Raising Your Spirited Child - a reread :-) Also, the bible. I'm sure a big contributing factor to our hard June was my being lax about bible reading in the morning. I finished up leading a study on Philippians and I have to say, I've kinda given up (temporarily) on memorizing it. My brain just can't function that way while pregnant/on zofran. I've continued to study it and I know it really well right now and God has certainly used it in my life these past few months but I can't seem to make the step from knowing it really well to word for word memorization. And I'm okay with that but when I stopped studying it, I never started studying anything else and that was an issue. So yesterday I just kept going past Philippians to Colossians and I only had to go a few verses before I had read what I needed. I think Colossians 1:11 is going to be my new morning prayer for this season!

Watching - On nights when the weather is bad and we get the kids to bed at a decent time, some fun BBC documentaries. (H/T to Karen and her pinterest page). Right now I'm on At Home with the Georgians. On nights when the sun has been out, I can't seem to deny them that last bit of summer fun so they stay up late and instead of a show, I end up watching them ride their bikes, Lucy now without training wheels, and Jonah now without any sort of caution at all. Seriously, the kid finds a hill and glides down it, only stopping inches from whatever barrier he comes upon. Or he takes it up onto a rock wall and seems shocked when he falls off the three inch wide surface. Luckily he seems to bounce.

Listening - Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Lucy started piano lessons with me a few weeks back and can now play an actual song. It's so cute to listen to her play. As I mentioned above just a couple of times, she and I have been having a bit of a rough patch so its nice to appreciate the few things we've cooperated well on (piano and bike riding mostly!)

Eating - Blueberries. After tons and tons of rain, the sun finally came out long enough for me to be able to say "Yes!" to the kid's repeated questions of "Is it a good blueberry picking day?" We got two bucketfuls (4 gallon sized freezer bags plus enough for a cobbler or two and plenty of fresh eating) before their helpful attitudes began to fizzle out. Now we just have to find our copy of Blueberries for Sal. We couldn't find it last time we went blueberry picking either. I swear we read it all year and then the one week we intentionally look for it, it's gone!

Making - A teeny tiny blanket. While we dropped everything else, we are still finishing up The Alphabet Path but the last few weeks have not been the greatest. U and V just aren't great letters. But W turned out to be surprisingly fun. There are a couple great W books - Where the Wild Things Are and Wemberly Worried are the two biggest hits. And Lucy and I started her first big handicraft project - weaving. It's been a hit and as soon as its done, I'll be sure to share more info. Then I've got a few picture books to read for the letters X and Y but really all that's left is a trip to the Zoo for letter Z.

The things they say - Poetry and Potty Talk Edition

Me: Lucy, do you want to do a reading lesson now? I'm done with the dishes.
Lucy: Yes, well, I want to play this though.
Me: You can play instead, that's okay.
Lucy: No, I want to do a reading lesson but let's pretend that you are the teacher and I am the kid who is being homeschooled and you are teaching me about reading. It will be fun.
Me: I think I can do that

Jonah, Lucy and I are all snuggled in bed one morning.
Lucy: I'm being smooshed. I only have as much room as a Zebra stripe!"

For Background: We live next door to a car repair shop which I shall call "Bob's Car Shop" (note to creepy stalker people, it's not actually called Bob's Car Shop so no need to google). 

Lucy: What's that?
Me: It's a tow truck.
Lucy: It takes broken cars away right?
Me: Right, that car must not be working right now.
Lucy: Oh my, they had better get that car to Bob's Car Shop!"

I posted that on their local page and they all got a kick out it.

Reading Lucy a birthday message which ended, Love, Aunt Steph
Lucy: Love Aunt Steph? I already do!
I had to explain that the card wasn't really meaning to be bossy :-)

I know we do things a little differently, but it still sometimes hits me sometimes. This conversation happened while we were camping in the yurt.

Lucy: What will we do if it rains?
Me: Go inside the yurt and play or look at books.
Lucy: Or watch something?
Me: Well, we didn't bring the computer
Lucy: But there is one of those things that you can watch shows but you can't pick what is on like in a hotel (she's referring to a tv)
Me: I don't think so
Lucy: Yes, right over the fridge!
Me: That's a microwave
Lucy: What's a microwave?

To be fair, she does know what a tv is, she just can't ever remember what its called. But she had no clue what a microwave was and I had to take a couple minutes to explain it. We don't have one but I guess I didn't realize that neither do any of the other homes she frequents. Maybe we'll find a neat science experiment for our next trip to the Grandparents, like blowing up soap or something.

We've been getting a lot of rain lately which apparently brought up Lucy's inner poet.

Today, today
The sky is gray
Rainy weather's on its way

And then there's Jonah, who was supposed to be taking a nap when I overheard this.
Jonah: "I'm going to say potty talk now". Pauses..."Potty talk! Potty talk! Potty talk! Am I in trouble? No!"

I guess he found a workaround for the "No potty talk" rule.

Classics Challenge - The Shuttle

As a young girl, I loved The Secret Garden and can't even count how many times I read it. It was just magical the way Francis Burnett words spoke to me. I liked The Little Princess and Little Lord Fauntleroy too although not quite as much. So when I was perusing this list of Persephone books, as Karen over at Books and Chocolate suggested, looking for a Forgotten Classic, I was shocked to see the author's name! I didn't know she had written adult books. How could I not know this? And seeing as how the book had less than 600 (fairly high) ratings on goodreads, how could the world not know this? The fact that it isn't available for free on gutenberg.org and I could start reading it right away only sweetened the deal.

And this book is like dessert. So delightful! The "shuttle" of the title refers not only to the ships that carry passengers from England to America and back but is also a metaphor for the invisible thread of fate tying England and America. The plot revolves around a young, almost too perfect American Heiress and the sister in England she is trying to save from her marriage gone wrong. Anyone who has seen Downton Abbey will be familiar with the concept of an English Estate being held up by the American heiress it's owner marries but this book really shows the best and worst of that concept.

Bettina, our heroine, is as I said, almost too perfect. But just almost. I loved her. Sometime it is just nice to read a book where the good guys are good and the bad guys are bad and everyone gets their due in the end. Despite feeling relaxed because I had total faith that would happen, it was quite a page turned. I didn't know how it would happen. And while it had quite a bit of descriptive passages, especially in the middle, and I've said before I struggle with those, I never felt bogged down by these. It had just enough of that same wonderful vague magic that I loved so much in The Secret Garden plus a garden makeover. It really is The Secret Garden for grown-ups.

The Shuttle is my Back to the Classics Challenge Forgotten Classic Selection. Check out Books and Chocolate for more classic reviews.

Beginning my Book of Centuries

Craig got me this lovely Book of Centuries back in February. Then I got sick and it sat on a shelf for a few months. But I recently got it down and - actually wrote in it!

My third entry (My first two were Lucy and Jonah's births). It was so pretty and fresh that it was a bit nerve-wracking to write in it but now I can't wait to add more.

Sitting on my nightstand (or what Jonah calls my "island" because I guess it doesn't seem much different than the kitchen island) underneath my commonplace book. It doesn't actually sit there because I got nervous it was too visible to Jonah and his little pen-loving self so I moved it to inside the drawer where hopefully it will be forgotten by him, but not by me. I hope that by the time Lucy is ready to start hers, mine will be filled with examples to show her. 

On the Defensive

Lately I've started collecting the books I'll need for Lucy's Y1 of ambleside online in addition to the ones I'll use this fall. I'm still undecided as to whether we'll start Y1 in January or next year. I have a lot of good reasons for starting in January but I think only time will tell if they will trump my reason for waiting - to let her be little and "just" play.

But buying all those really lovely books made me realize I really needed to start protecting our books better. So I did a bit of research and just yesterday started my new project - book protection!



It was actually quite overwhelming, there are so many options. I'm not an expert at all so if any librarians are out reading this, don't judge me but I figured I would share what I did. I started with the hardcover books with jackets. There are a ton of different ones out there but I went with these from Brodart. I ordered 10in high ones for our chapter books and 14 in ones for our picture books and that worked well but its not a big deal if they are too large so keep that in mind if you plan to order some.

They seemed to be a middle of the road type which is just what I wanted. I didn't need fancy archival quality ones but I did want the sturdiness I thought the paper backing would add so I didn't choose the economy style. A package of 25 is between $8-$10 depending on the size which I think is a great deal. And they are so easy to use as this video shows. The only even sorta tricky part was adhering them to the book. These particular ones don't come with any adhesive for that (the one-tab it talks about is used to close the cover on itself which is helpful but a different thing). I looked at several hardback books I had checked out from the library and decided to use a small piece of this tape since it seemed the easiest to implement.

The video doesn't explain this but I closed the book and made sure my spine was aligned nicely, then inserted a small piece of the tape between the outside book jacket/cover and the book itself with the sticky part on the book. Then keeping the book as closed as possible, just wrap it over the top and onto the inside book jacket/cover. This does mean a small piece of tape (maybe 1/4-1/2 inch) is touching the book. None of my book are first editions so I don't mind this although I do think it would come off fairly easy if I needed it to and knowing that kids will be handling these, tape will be necessary. Repeat for the top and bottom of the front and back and you're done!

One down, three (thousand!) to go :-)






I really love them! They just make the books seem so much sturdier and when I finally decide on a labeling plan for our school books, I won't have to worry if I change my mind.

I will confess though that I used to be a book jacket hater, at least when it came to kid's books. Without the nice covers, they would always fall off or get ripped, so I normally just threw them away. I actually only kept those winnie-the-pooh ones because they were so cute I'd though about framing them somehow as a wall decoration. But now that I know how easy it is to cover a book jacket, I'm kicking myself!

But no use crying over lost book jackets. I do want to come up with an inexpensive way to protect my hardcover books without jackets though so if you have any ideas, please share. I know you can do it with clear film roll but unlike the book jacket covers which can be purchased in reasonable amount of 25 per size, film roll only seems to be available in library sized quantities and I don't need that much.

For our paperbacks, I ordered this 4ml laminating vinyl and used this technique. I'm not really a fan of the double center slit because its not just the peel-back liner, the vinyl itself is marked which means there is less flexibility in arranging (you can't place the book at a 90 degree angle if it is large or you'd have a odd line down the middle) but it was on sale and I could buy only 200" so I could try it without a huge commitment so it wasn't a huge deal. Next time, I think I might go with this one. I've already used up the 200" I ordered and I haven't even finished half of our really good picture books so I know I will be able to use up a larger roll fairly easily! I know many people use clear contact paper but I like that this is thicker and I really liked that it was fairly easy to re-position if I had a big crease which I think would be much more difficult with contact paper.

I also bought a roll of book tape for the inevitable repairs that occur when Jonah sits and looks at books. He tries so hard to be gentle but its just not really in his nature. It doesn't help that by the time they get to him, they've already been read many times. But nothing a little sturdy tape can't fix.

Two days later and there we are - her kindergarten shelf! Not everything but a good portion of it. Ready or not...

From a few weeks ago

I could have swore I posted this but I just found it in my drafts so - oops!

After living in the area for over 5 years now, I finally went up in the arch. I really dislike the idea of living someplace but never doing the major attractions in the area but everyone came to visit when Lucy was a newborn and Craig took them all then. So when Lucy asked, I figured we needed to go before I had another newborn/excuse to put it off.

When we visited the outside when Lucy was a tot, she was all about the weeds. This time Jonah was the toddler and he just wanted to hang. Monuments are lost on the under 3 crowd. 

Riding up the "tram." I'm not terrible claustrophobic but between my belly, having to keep Jonah on my lap and the overall limited space, I was quite glad to get out of this thing.

Note - it didn't smell bad. I think Jonah's trying to pop his ears.

In what has become a typical Lucy tourist reaction, she got upset at having to leave the arch behind. Hugs and tears were involved. And if you watch the video, you will see that she even kissed it and while I am hardly a germaphobeic parent, I think y'all have to agree that - eww! But in my defense, I was just walking up with Jonah and didn't even see the kiss until we replayed the video so that is all on daddy/videographer.

Crown Candy for some dinner and malts cheered her up though!

Classics Challenge - Macbeth

I wasn't sure what play I would choose but then I happened to see How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare on sale for kindle and picked it up. You can not read that book, which I highly recommend by the way, without being inspired to read one or more Shakespeare plays. Then my ao forum friends decided to go through MacBeth and I thought, why not?

Why not indeed! I don't think I would have picked a tragedy on my own, I'm more of a comedy gal, but I really enjoyed this. I did have to read it aloud though. If I tried for even a few lines to switch to reading it in my head, I completely lost interest and found myself writing a grocery list in my head. Oops. Since I do most of my harder reading when the kids are napping/sleeping, I had to do a lot of whisper reading. And I tried not to focus too much on figuring out the deep meanings of everything. I just enjoyed the language and the story. I'm having a hard time even describing how much I enjoyed the language or how well written it was because to describe Shakespeare as "really good" is kinda pathetic. But do I really need to say that, y'all know, he's Shakespeare. He's good. Most of the characters in this play, not so much. Lady MacBeth - she's scary!

Another thing I really enjoyed about branching out from my Shakespeare comedy rut is his amazing ability to keep you on your toes in terms of mood. You'll be in the middle of a funny scene with a mom and son bantering and then, bam, mood change! Or the other way, you are in the middle of this intense act and then all of a sudden, you realize that you just almost missed a joke (or you did miss it but luckily a fellow reader caught it and you can go back and laugh).You never quite know what's gonna happen next.

I will be honest though. The one downside to reading Shakespeare, for me at least, is that I feel kinda stupid. When I read other classics, even if I have to trod through them, I get a good sense of accomplishment at the end. Wow, yay me, I made it through Dickens! With Shakespeare, I know I missed so much of it. So many jokes and references and deeper ideas that were totally over my head. Even with reading it in a discussion, which helped a lot, I could probably read this again 10 times and still find new things to think about. Which in reality, isn't really a problem at all. But in my head, I kinda miss feeling smart (and now feel free to judge me, I won't mind :-).

I want to read another now. Probably Hamlet because our town's Shakespeare in the Park is putting it on  in a few weeks and Craig and I are hoping to snag ourselves a babysitter and make a night of it. And if for some reason that doesn't work out, there is always David Tennant. But I think it might hurt my soul a bit to see David Tennant play somewhat less loveable than what I'm used to.

MacBeth was my Classic Play selection for the Back to the Classics Challenge. Check out more plays and classics over at Books and Chocolate.

A Yurting We Will Go

We just got back from our summer camping trip. I had a great time but am suddenly feeling very pregnant.

We planned this trip to the Lake of the Ozarks before I was pregnant and briefly thought about a tent but there is no way I would have been up for that so I'm very glad we ended up reserving one of their yurts. It made 3 nights of camping perfectly do-able. We went with the dog friendly one of the two which had me a bit worried it would be dirty but I really wanted to be closer to the playground and the bathroom (another really good decision since I am now at the stage where I use that a lot!) and it was fine.

I guess I didn't get any pictures of the area but it was great. We had room for our stuff inside, I certainly appreciated the beds, even if they were futon style, and the light inside made bedtime much easier. The kids could play at the playground within my sight but far enough away that they had some independence while we cooked or just sat around the fire. I think this was one of the few state parks that have yurts but if we go on an extended camping trip again, we'll look for yurts or cabins for sure. One night in a tent at a time is plenty for me!

But we didn't just go for the campsite of course. We went to have fun! First up was Lucy's first trail ride. I thought she might be nervous but she didn't hesitate for a second!

Jonah and I took a little hike while that was going on and the stable cat came with us. Jonah thought that hiking with a cat was the funniest thing ever. Then we all took a hike together in what will now be refered to as the tick hike. It was a cooler day so we didn't apply bugspray and for some reason, ticks didn't cross my mind. I guess I've become lax now the our chickens have taken care of our backyard for the most part. Craig, Jonah and I each had 2 but Lucy ended up with probably 15-20. And of course, she is the most dramatic about the whole thing. But it wasn't the bugs or the removal process that had her upset, she just wanted to put on her beautiful purple princess pajamas and we weren't letting her!

The weather ended up being cooler than we expected (seriously, this was the first week of June! Could we get a bit of sun?) but that didn't stop the kids from having fun playing next to, if not in, the water. 

And USDA recommendations be darned, we ate s'mores!

The second day our "big event" was a day trip to Ha Ha Tonka Park to visit the castle ruins. I think this might be my favorite picture of the trip. Because as every parent of small children knows, no matter the circumstances, the emotional tide will turn in a before you can blink an eye. One minute everyone is happy, the next Jonah is crying because he didn't like the options of finishing the (1/4 mi) hike to the ruins himself or letting Daddy carry him (He wanted me to and I said no) and Lucy is upset because Craig read the sign saying the castle burned. I had warned her several times before we got there that this was castle ruins, ruins - not a full castle. But the burning part was too much for her sensitive castle-loving soul I guess. 

Cheering up a bit



Craig explaining the science behind arches.

Now she is upset that we have to leave the castle behind and it will be lonely. Luckily, the second hike we went on at the park was steep and interesting. The kids called it an up and down hike and it seemed to distract them from their earlier woes.



Another day, another hike. And could they be cuter holding hands like that? This was also the hike that proved to me that California Baby bug spray works well as a tick repellent I've always liked it as a mosquito repellent but its harder to test on ticks since those are much more sporadic). After that first hike, we used it everyday and no ticks, even on this hike which had a special tick warning sign at the beginning. Craig did get one more the last day but he wasn't wearing any bug spray then. So if you've ever wondered if it is worth it, I say yes.

Visiting a cave. Lucy wasn't so sure about the safety of this place and alternated between finding it fascinating and declaring she wanted to leave right now and not come back. But later on she said it was one of her favorite parts of the trip. Kids!




Our last day was spent loading up and heading to the capital city.

Craig knew a guy and got us a private tour and since they were between sessions, we got to go down to the house floor and explore a bit. I showed the kids the voting buttons and Jonah said he would vote "present."

Just testing their future seats out?

The whisper gallery. Lucy liked it because it was "very fancy."

Then we went up even higher! Lucy did not like this part because the fanciness was gone. It definitely was not fancy. Just an arduous hike up steep metal stairs through the inner workings of the dome. And Jonah insisted I carry him. By time we got to the very tip top, I wasn't quite sure why I had originally told our guide I could handle "a few" stairs. And luckily our guide has a toddler himself so he didn't seem to mind when Jonah wanted to walk down the stairs back to the ground floor himself - at his very slow speed. I was glad of the slow speed. Keep in mind that I've spent a good portion of the last few months in bed so its not like I'm a crossfit guru right now. Four days later and my legs are still aching. But I'm glad we did it. The view was great and once we got back down again, it was pretty impressive to look up and see just how high we had gone.

Resting our legs and filling our bellies before finally heading home, ready to relax after our fun, but tiring summer vacation.