You did what?!

Yesterday we took the boys rock climbing with our friends Alison and John (neighbors with the rock climbing wall in their house!). We drove to Pilot Mountain, which is just under 2 hours from our house, drove to the top, loaded ourselves up with our gear, and set out on the trail to our climbing location. Yes, I did briefly have those 'mommy' thoughts (what if Gavin gets tired. . .what if Merritt gets cold. . .what if mommy falls off the side of the mountain. . .) but I decided I lost the 'mom of the year' title a long time ago and I have always wanted to go rock climbing out in nature, so. . .

Here is Alison and I with the babies and gear (she is 29 weeks pregnant).  We decided to take the longer 'easier' route down to our site and let the boys take the steep, but brief, descent and start getting set up. Thankfully Gavin went with them, because I am certain I would not have been able to carry anything more on our hike. . .

Here is Gavin, John, and Wallace (their dog) starting out on the path. It was foggy in the morning and had just finished raining, but the weather cleared up as we were climbing and eventually we got to see some views of below, besides just clouds, from the mountain.

The boys quickly navigated their way down to our site and as you can see, my little monkey was happy and eager to get up on the wall! He even carried his own pack with his harness in it!

Meanwhile, Alison, Merritt and I were making our way to the site, and after a 20 minute hike (which somehow ended up being uphill even though we were trying to get to a site that was down the mountain from us. . .), we arrived. As you can see, Merritt thought it was exhausting.

I promptly dropped my gear and ate half our snacks.

Gavin was already hooked up and climbing. When he got tired, we set a goal for him, and in true Gavin form he met his goal and climbed even farther! He likes to climb, but I think sometimes he enjoys swinging out into nothing even more enjoyable. Part of me fears that these pictures are going to be shown some day on some 'extreme sports' show that features my son. You know, those 'this is where it all started' pictures?

When Gavin was finished with his first climb, he still had loads of energy (big surprise, huh?), so we hung him from a tree in his harness for a while. As you can see, Wallace was delighted with his 'Gavin pinata', and judging from the looks of glee on Gavin's face, he didn't think it was all that bad either.

Here is David climbing, with Merritt looking on.  David did well and reached the top during both of his climbs. Go daddy go!

Merritt is expressing his happiness that daddy is rappelling back down.

Here is mommy on her second climb. It was so much fun and everything on my body hurt by the time we arrived home. Who knew that finger muscles could ache?!?

And here is Gavin on his second climb. How high is he? You can see John's head at the bottom of the picture!

Thank you to John and Alison for taking us on this adventure, and hopefully we will be posting more rock climbing pics in the near future!