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!!!

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Spring Fling 2011

Cutie Pie’s preschool Spring Fling was on Friday.  Another mom and I were in charge of planning this event this year which made the entire week leading up to it totally stressful for me.  It was especially awful because I spent several days fielding personal phone calls about when each age group was scheduled to come out to enjoy the field day…  The preschool director typically handles communication between the parent volunteers and the teachers.  This year, however, the director failed to come to the two planning meetings I hosted and also failed to read my meeting minutes in which I detailed the timing for each age group.  She never told the teachers the time line so I ended up having both parents and teachers calling my home to ask…  For a person who hates talking on the phone it was a hell.

Enough of my complaining though!  The Spring Fling came together beautifully despite all of my fears and worries.  It always comes together with more help from eager volunteers than I could ever hope for.  Have I mentioned that I love Cutie Pie’s preschool?  The parents and teachers are wonderful!

This year we had six stations for the children to take turns exploring: bubbles, marble painting, spray art, an obstacle course, lemonade and cookie stand and face painting!  The children came out by age group with the toddlers being first, then the threes and, finally, the fours.  Each group had 45-minutes which ended up being plenty of time for them to relax and enjoy themselves.

What went down at the bubble station is probably pretty self-explanatory.  We had several bubble machines going and lots of trays and cups of bubble solution.  The children could choose from bubble wands of every size.  This station was quite popular!

At the marble art station, the children got to choose the paint colors they wanted to squeeze onto the paper.  The paper was set into a box top to keep the mess contained.  Once the paint was squirted onto the paper the children were able to drop a few marbles or bouncy balls onto it.  Tilting the box to roll the balls through the paint produced some wonderfully gorgeous art work!

An obstacle course ran down the center of the yard.  The toddlers weren’t so much interested in the doing the activities in the sequence they were designed but that was ok.  It was all about the exercise and fun.  The older children waited in line and took turns.  Everyone got a “superstar” gold medal at the end!

There was a snack station set up with lots of yummy sugar cookies and ice cold lemonade and water.

We filled up spray bottles with colored water and let the kids spray the colors onto a long paper sheet.  We had to mix a bit of tempura paint into the water because food coloring did not make the water dark enough to show up on the brown paper we used as a canvas…

Of course, face painting is always a hit.  One of the volunteer moms was fabulous at it!  She created some beautiful lady bugs, Easter eggs and flowers.  Some kids went back to have both cheeks and hands painted 🙂

It was a lovely yet stressful morning for me.  I couldn’t have done it without all the wonderful volunteers who showed up.  I’m working on a special thank you for them that I will share with you in a bit.

Today is the first day of Spring Break and it’s raining!  Argh!  What are we going to do?!