The G & G family is back! Quarantine is over; nobody is currently sick; and we are ready to celebrate!
S and I took the day off work yesterday, and, along with the boys and S's sister Sw, we went to this ropes course that has zip-lining and stuff like that. Lil' S1 went there with his summer camp class a few times and really liked it, so we decided to go there for his birthday. It was super fun.
I've been zip-linging before, once in Queenstown, New Zealand, but it was a bit different. When I did it in NZ, you zip-lined from station to station, and each station was a large platform that could fit dozens of people, and everybody would take their time between stations, unhook, look at the views and chat. It was very cool but not too physically demanding. The place we went yesterday was not like that. The stations were small, individual platforms, and you had to stay locked in to a cable at all times. There was also an obstacle course element to it that, depending on how intense you wanted your experience to be, could greatly vary in difficulty.
Sw wanted to do the easiest course possible, so she and S took Lil' S2 through the kiddie course, which left me with Lil' S1. The first course we did was not too hard, but it was still freaky at first. I mean, you climb way up in the trees, and at times there is nothing to prevent you from falling other than a carabiner clipped to a half-inch cable. I don't know how high we actually got, but once you get above 30 feet or so, it doesn't really matter -- it's all death high past that.
I'm a tiny bit scared of heights (I think most people are), but I acclimate to them pretty quickly, especially when I'm working on a task. I used to have to climb up scaffolding when I worked construction for a summer and initially I'd be freaked out, but then I'd start working and kinda forget about how high up I was. It was the same way yesterday. I was so focused on just moving my clips through the course that after a while, I didn't even really think about the heights.
Except when I did -- like on the final thing we did: a free fall from an automated belay. That was hella scary. The belay prevents you from falling too fast, but before you go, you're looking at this little contraption thinking, "Am I really going to trust this thing and jump from the top of this giant tree?" When Lil' S1 did it he said, "Here I go, I'm going to plunge to my death," and then he kinda scooted off from a sitting position. I did a 3-2-1 you-have-to-go don't-be-a-coward step-off. Neither of us died. The only bad part is that I held onto the line as I was falling, and when the belay kicked in, it yanked my already hurting shoulder. Also, it kept lowering me, even after I had already hit the ground, causing me to fall down. But that seemed to happening to everybody who used it.
Lil' S1 and I did a second course that was legit hard. S was going to do it with us, but she couldn't climb up the first part of it, so she did the one Lil' S1 and I did before. (Sw and Lil' S2 got lunch.) This course was a total workout. I was dripping sweat by the end of it. (The fact that it was 93 degrees didn't help.) There was almost no zip-lining. It was almost entirely an obstacle course, like an episode of Fear Factor -- tons of climbing and reaching and pulling and balancing. Like I said, it was legit hard. Lil' S1 wasn't even supposed to do it -- it's 12 and up (he just turned 9). But he just went and got too far along before the course employee noticed. I overhead the employee -- who's like an 18-year-old kid -- talking to S about it as I started the course. Although, I wish he wouldn't have said anything, because then S is shouting at me to make make sure I take care of Lil' S1, and it's like, Uh... there's a massive cargo net between us that he just climbed and I'm still trying to figure out how to navigate, so I don't really know what you want me to do.
He did great though. It was really impressive, honestly. He's always been an excellent climber. It's funny, in some ways, he's so soft and sedentary, but then in something like this he's tough and active. I guess we just have to encourage him to do physical things he likes. He might be one of those guys who doesn't care much for organized sports but likes things like rock climbing and surfing. During our ill-fated trip to the Outer Banks, he got a body board and was kinda learning how to ride the waves. It was a similar thing to the ropes course in that he wasn't scared, even though the waves were tossing him around. (I was scared for him. I constantly had to prevent him from going out too far, and I made him take breaks so he didn't get too tired.)
I still might get one kid who's into sports sports, however. Lil' S2 has been asking me to do things like play volleyball (i.e., hit his stuffed whale back-and-forth over a blanket) and play catch with the football and sometimes he'll just dribble the basketball on his own for a few minutes. He starts soccer in few weeks, so we shall see how that goes.
Anyway, after the ropes course, we came home and ate District Taco and Baskin-Robbins ice cream cake. As desserts go, you really can't beat ice cream cake. I think it's my favorite. The cake said Lil' S1's name on it because it was originally planned for his birthday, but since Lil' S2 had his birthday when I was in quarantine, we made it for him too. And since it's my birthday in few days, and there is no point in getting another ice cream cake (we have plenty of leftovers), I guess it's for me as well.
It didn't work out exactly as planned, but it was a pretty good celebration, all things considered.
Until next time...
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