Treetop Trek

My mom took the boys on Saturday afternoon for a day of swimming, the movies and dinner.  J and I figured it would be the perfect opportunity to check out the new Treetop Trek zip line and adventure challenge at the zoo.  Several weeks ago I bought a two half-off groupons for the challenge and they were burning a hole in my pocket.

We thought we would go and it would end up being 4 or 5 zip lines in the trees.  Cool but no big deal.  Oh, how wrong we were!

It took us four hours to complete over 50 challenges on two courses.  By challenges I mean a crazy series of suspended obstacles.  We did everything from riding a hanging skateboard between two platforms to zip lining across a lake to…

… swinging out on a rope swing tarzan-style onto a cargo net!  It was way more physically demanding that we thought and so much more amazing!!!

I loved how the trek took us all throughout the zoo.  We were literally walking above the animals and zoo visitors.  It was amazing.  People kept looking up wondering what the heck we were doing.

We also liked how free we were to do our own safety harnesses.  We had a mini training course with a guide at the very beginning where we demonstrated that we knew what we were doing.  Then they just let us go!  We did not have a guide with us while we were up in the trees.  There were guides on the ground at certain points along the way to help us retrieve fallen gloves or make suggestions on how to approach challenges.  But for the most part we were on our own.  It was great!

The next morning I was surprisingly sore from our adventure.  I guess I used muscles that I don’t normally use because I’m never that sore after body sculpting classes or yoga!

I cannot wait to go back and try it again!  Maybe when the weather cools down though…  Mid-July is just too darn hot!!!

Advertisement

Zoo Day

Today is a day for taking it easy.  Wildman is at school and Cutie Pie is home with me.  It’s supposed to rain and I have housework to finish up.  Since we don’t have anywhere we have to be I let Cutie Pie stay in his pajamas.  I love days like this.

Part of my housework this morning consisted of vacuuming up shards of glass from our back porch.  The wind was so strong yesterday that my outdoor wall clock blew down.  I thought the face was made of plastic but soon found out differently.  I loved that clock.  You could read the time from the other side of the pool.  Now I’m on a mission to find a replacement.

The other thing I had to clean up outside was a huge piece of soffit that had apparently blown down over night.  That’s some pretty strong wind!  March has not gone out like a lamb…

Anyway, because we’re being bums today, I don’t have any fun pictures or stories to share except for our zoo trip last Friday.  By TGIF the weather had finally turned nice so B and I took our kids on a little field trip.  Much fun was had at the petting zoo and wading pools.  Dippin’ Dots were consumed with joy.  It was a lovely day!

Now I’m off to scour the Internet for ideas for fun summer activities for the kids.  I’m sure we’ll do a vacation bible school or two but I’m not sure that I’ll sign them up for swim lessons this year.  Both boys are very competent swimmers.  I definitely need to find a few fun things to break up the summer without over-scheduling ourselves into craziness.

Enjoy this Tuesday!

The Weekend That Was

I’m sitting here at my computer with a plate of sliced avocado, a small stack of dill pickle chips and a toasted and buttered everything bagel trying to recapture the feeling of peace that I had when I took this sunset photo yesterday evening.  It’s kind of hard to recapture peace when you keep biting the same place on the inside of your bottom lip though.  Don’t you hate when that happens?  You bite it once then it swells and you keep biting it because it’s sticking out.  Ugh!  That hurts!

Anyway, it was another lovely weekend here.  We kicked it off with a couples date night at a really great local restaurant.  We had a private room for eight and a seemingly endless supply of malbec wine.  I had the cobia with a sun-dried tomato cream sauce!  It was pretty much a religious experience.  After dinner we exited through our private deck to the back of the restaurant and walked out onto the restaurant’s pier.  It was freezing but our huddled group made for a great picture 🙂  Our little party made its way over to rundown, hole-in-the wall bar near our house to watch some truly awful karaoke.  It was really fun but the smoke in the seedy bar got to us after a while.  We all got a good laugh about how we went to one of the nicest places and then one of the sketchiest places that night.

On Saturday, J took off to St. Augustine to meet up with his old friend from North Carolina.  His friend was in Florida to celebrate his 50th birthday at a motocross track.  I ended up taking the kids to the zoo then Big Red took Wildman fishing while Cutie Pie napped.  It was homemade pizza and asparagus for dinner then off to bed for us.  J finally rolled in from his wild birthday party fun at 4:30 AM!!!

Sunday found us out on a spoil island again.  The weather was warm with just the right amount of chill in the air to make it comfortable.  Weekend boat trips are one of the best things about living here.  I could have stayed stretched out on my picnic blanket, basking the rays of the sun, listening to the children play, watching the calm water ripple up on the sandbar forever.  It was wonderful.