Mommy's Vacation

I went to the Women's retreat near Santa Cruz through our church this past weekend. It was great to get away for two nights! Of course, I didn't sleep much because we were a bunch of mommys who could actually have a conversation without being asked for more food or to be picked up or anything else. When I returned, I was downloading some pictures from the camera that Tony had here at the house .... here's a photo of Michael over the weekend. This was taken after they had spent the day out in the backyard digging holes for posts and cementing them in. Tony says he ate a little bit of bark, a little dirt and a little bit of cement. But he had fun! I don't want to know if Tony washed Michael's hands before he fed him!

During our "free time" at the retreat, we had the option of going on the ropes course ... so my friend Melissa and I were trying to decide if we should do it. I wanted to do it, but didn't want to be the only one from our group doing it. I was a little concerned when the guy told us that it wasn't their most strenuous course, but it was their highest course. So, Melissa said "I'll only do it if you do it". To which I responded, "okay, let's do it". While we were hiking up the hill, Melissa said "I'm only doing this because you are doing this and I'm so competetive that I just agreed" and then I told her "that's exactly why I'm doing it!" We just looked at each other and said "what were we thinking!!!????" So here are some pictures of us/me on the course. Man, when I did these things in my early 20's I wasn't bothered by the way I looked in a harness!!

Waiting our turn to climb. See that cargo net in the background? That's what you climb up, NOT ATTACHED to anything to get up to the rest of the course.

This is the part where I had to straddle the board and hook myself onto the tree so I could get to the rope bridge for the next section of the course.

Here's the balance beam part ... they suggested we go across not holding onto anything, yea, right! The only thing to hold onto was the rope connecting my harness to the cable above, but I wasn't crazy enough to think I have that good of balance! The guy did make me sit and swing in the harness there though, and then I had to get back to standing on the beam ... I guess it really was just a telephone pole.

I'm actually standing on a cable here and walking across it with just a loose rope to hold onto. I figured that the only way that rope was going to be of any use to me was if it was taught ... so I had to lean forward a bit to do that and then just slide my feet along the cable.

This is when I found the true meaning of "tree hugger". I was told to stay on that platform until the person in front of me got across the next cable. I had no intention of standing there without holding onto something.

The final portion of the course was the zip line. This is me jumping off ... like how the guy looks like he's pushing me??? I think he was doing that because he told me to just lean forward and go ... if I leaned backward I might have hit my head on the platform as I fell downward waiting for the slack in my rope to go away. I thought it was pretty funny that the person taking the pictures actually caught this with the camera and got the guy "pushing" me!

All Done. This is me suspended in the air after the zip line ...

So, after we did the ropes course Melissa and I went on a hike and then we found the super slide at the retreat center. It's a really long, windy water slide set up on the side of the mountain. They don't put water in it, but you go down on a burlap sack. It was a blast! We would go down it and then run (yes, I said run!) back up the hill to go down again and again. We were like two kids in the world's largest, bestest park ever! My body didn't stop hurting until just yesterday! (3 days later)