Braydan's Baring Birthday

All Braydan wanted for his birthday this year was for me to climb Mt.Baring with him. I thought for sure I could get out of it. Surely Alisha wouldn't be able to babysit all day Saturday (she could). When it poured rain Friday, I thought there's no way we'll go now.

We went.

So . . . go I went with a happy attitude. That was part of the present, to have a happy attitude. I think on the way down I might have forgot about that part. . .. 

Anyway the hike started off great. The sun was just coming up and we were on a trail merrily crunching through leaves (for about 10 min.) when Wes said we need to turn at the creek up ahead. We get to the creek and I look around for a trail and there's nothing but straight up. I think he must be confused, but no, up we go into the trees. Apparently, if there's flags every hour, we're on a "trail."

I love this picture because it shows how steep it is behind Amber! 

We climb and climb straight up for a few hours and get to the ridge where I learn that we're not even half way. What!? I'm already filthy dirty from grabbing tree roots and mud, and anything I can to pull myself up and we're just getting started.

After a nice little jaunt on the ridge, we get to some snow.

See my happy face?

Then lots of snow. Then lots of snow on huge boulders. Scary. The whole time Wes and Braydan encouraged us on, "you guys are doing so awesome! Isn't this fun? This is the best present ever!  It's just over the next ridge, or we're almost there!"

I wanted to yell at them! "No this is not fun! And I'm not doing awesome! I hate this!" But, I didn't say that :)

I was so glad I had my snow pants and gloves. I thought it was strange when Braydan packed them in my bag, but he knew what was coming. It was hard climbing up, but what was even harder was thinking, "how in heck am I going to get back down this?" Braydan kept telling me, "just don't' worry about that yet."

Wes on the summit

We made it to the summit, 4,000 vertical feet later. I literally crawled backwards to summit. The rock on top was not very wide, so I never even stood up on it. I was too scared.

I loved going back down the first part in the snow cause I could slide a lot.  It was actually fun. 

But once we got back in the trees, it was scary steep. I cried and prayed off and on the whole way down. I wanted to give up, but after sitting for a few minutes, I would remind myself that I had to keep going cause they weren't going to carry me out.  I slid a majority of the way down on my bum!  My nice pants were black by the end of the trip. I was covered in mud!

This picture is after we got back to the bottom and out of the trees.  I could not believe I just climbed that mountain.  It was crazy looking back up at it.  If they would've pointed to it in the beginning, I would've never believed them that we could do it.

 I've never done anything that hard and don't know if I will again, but I was glad Braydan had a fun day and got his crazy present. Thank you Dyers for going with us, especially for blazing a path in the snow and putting up with me!

Halloween

On Sunday night we carved our pumpkins with the Kimballs.

Kaleb wore his pink headband he made in his sunbeam class the whole night. That's another story altogether.

His caterpillar kept him company during the carving.

I have a bag full of costumes I've collected and the kids picked different ones all week. This is what they settled on for trick-or-treating. It was chilly so I had to force Eliza to put on a layer with her dress.

The kids had twice the endurance as last year.

We met up with the Adams and raced around the neighborhood.

October

AGH!! Blogger has totally changed things on here! Forgive me for still trying to figure it out, like how to flip the pictures?  Anyway, fall is so awesome.  I love it.  Weeks and weeks ago, Kaleb helped me pull out tomatoes

 We got to can lots of salsa with the tomatoes. That's about all I canned this year and I'm okay with that.

Our garden was fun this year.  Lots of peas, beans, zucchini, tomatoes, arugula, romaine, and carrots. 

I can't claim any credit, Braydan did most of it :-)

Kaleb is so funny with all his weird projects.  This interesting contraption is a beehive.  

He was so excited for Halloween decorations.  When he saw Amber collecting twigs for a witch broom, he was on board with that project.  He spent hours decorating his broom with cobwebs, spiders, and leaves.  He hung up bats and taped rats to the window.  You have to be brave to come to our house.

A few weeks back, we went to the pumpkin patch.  Kaleb was beyond excited.  He remembered everything from last year and knew exactly what he wanted to see again.  We all picked out the biggest, coolest pumpkins, but then put them back (except one) when we saw the price.  I was happy with a smaller pumpkin after that :)

I guess this post is mostly about Kaleb :-)  He had a rough spell with Kaitlyn for a while --where they fought every time she came over--but now they get a long great!  Yay!  I wonder who compromised?  The picture will give you a clue :-) 

Last Tuesday was the Halloween carnival, but it was also Braydan's birthday so we wondered whether we should go.  We asked the kids, and . . . .well . .. that was a dumb question.  Of course we have to go! 

I told Eliza she could wear this dress (which is too big) only if she held it up and didn't walk on the bottom.  Well she kept her word.  Even with her hands full of candy, she kept that dress up off the ground, sometimes so far as to show her panties. 

Splash

Sea Turtles

These sea turtle aquariums were so amazing! We stayed in this place for a while mesmerized.

Wake-up Call

The guys thought it would be so funny if they put trail mix on my back while I was sleeping. Sure enough, the birds came to check me out.

Feeding Time

These nice people bought some fish and let the kids feed the seals. Kaleb had a fish and was going to throw it when a bird swooped in and snatched it! The people felt bad for him and gave him one more fish to try.