The Titan with the Climbing Club

I need to type up this post and be done with it... 

I have been putting it off. so here goes

We drove down to Moab to the area know as Fisher Towers.  We hiked in 3 miles to an amazing camping spot.  We set up camp in the dark.  Slept and got ready for the next days adventure.  

My pack weighed 70 pounds.  It had food, water, camping gear and lots of climbing gear in it.  It was interesting to feel that extra weight crushing my knees, my back... It was eye opening.  Don't carry extra weight around... it hurts!

Our campsite. 

This is what we were going to be doing.  We had to place little cams in the rock... expect them to hold and then climb on.  We were secure with a rope attached to us but I was not ready for this.

Luckily I wasn't hauling up this much gear on my back for 900 feet 

but I still had plenty and it WAS heavy!

There is me in the purple coat... don't I look nervous!  My rope tied to my back would slowly come loose ( I didn't realize it until it was slipping from my back) and at 400 feet would fall to the ground. At that point I started to get really scared.  I had just watched  a movie clip of the Vertical Limit movie right before I came and instead of a rope falling in the movie it was a person dropping to the ground... I started to shake.  I should not have watched that silly movie clip....

This spot where the people are sitting is 600 feet up.  That is where I lost it.  Ang is amazing and brave. I am not so much.  I thought I was... but I am not!  I had just watched my rope fall of my back.(yes I was still tied in) and I had seen two people take some good falls and heard some scary screams from others who had fallen.  No one was too hurt. In rock climbing you just fall but being up so high was not good for me. 

I started to cry and wanted to go back down.  Thanks to Ang and AaronWhite, I kept going but only using my ascender to go up the rope and no rock climbing skills. 

800 feet above the ground.. I was shaking.  A LOT!  (another guy had just fallen here)

That is our camp site down there. 

This was the top.  I was so glad to get there.  Sadly I had left our head lamps in our back back at the duck- 300 feet down. so since it gets dark at 5:30 we had to descend down 300 feet in the dark.

Once my head lamp was on it was fine.  slowly rapping down 600 feet takes some time but when you cant see the ground it doesn't matter.  

Aaron was my hero.  He and Ang got me down.  Because of my loosing it... Aaron hauled down all my gear... which had a bad ending.  He accidentally dropped it 600 feet to that ledge in the picture below.  It fell in the dirt which was good but it fell on a ledge of another tower.  Not to the ground.  

So on Saturday morning Aaron was amazing... he climbed the whole Titan Tower again. Then he did a 650 foot repel down to this tower, got the gear, then repelled down that tower to get our gear safe.  If you look up three pictures to the one with a foot in the left corner, you would look down on the huge repel Aaron did to get the gear.  The gear dropped a  LONG way!

You can see a little tiny white helmet by the big crack. Aaron coming off the 650 repel, got our gear and now coming down the second tower. 

This is the picture zoomed out.  

So .. wimpy me stayed on the ground Saturday.  Ang in the center of the photo, went up with our friend Jennifer.  I was so relieved.

Here is the Titan.  900 feet of glory.  Those are carpet squares on the tower so our ropes wouldn't ruin the soft sandstone.  There were 22 of us on this on Friday.  High traffic!

It was a beautiful place. and an amazing campsite!

But I liked the campground from this view at the base instead of 600 or 900 feet up.  

The day ended great.  Aaron saved the gear that was dropped.  It was at least 500$ worth of gear. So we were so happy.  This is Ang with her arms up celebrating Aaron safely getting our dropped gear...

People were coming down in the dark again on Saturday which meant we hiked out in the dark.  That burger in Green River was amazing!

So for now.. I will keep my feet on the ground for a bit.  I seem to be getting soft in my old(er) age!

The boys at my house

Tyler is still all lego.  

He is so creative it is amazing.  He says he might want to be structural engineer like his Uncle Nolan.  He builds something amazing then wrecks it right after because he says he needs the pieces for his next project.  So we take pictures, document his hard work and move on to the next thing. 

This is a car shop where they fix up your car.  

(we have been at lots of car places lately)

It includes a place to sit on the left, a tree in the middle, a building that the roof comes off.  You can look inside and see tools, etc.  Then a car to work on and a red ramp for the cars to drive up on. 

Here is his crane he built.  

Here is a boat that includes a satellite on the left side.

This is the 33 year old man I am married too.  

He likes to play in the mud.  Thankfully he can do his own laundry and clean his own bike.  

That is mud all over him. 

Notice his shoes, and his chain, and his gears.... oh my

He says this is fun. 

Ella loves to dance

Ella loves to dance.  She is constantly changing from one princess dress to another.  She is either getting ready for the ball or at the ball or needing music on for the ball.  

These two videos make me laugh. I loved to dance as a kid (and as an adult).  My friend teaches a free Zumba dance class once a week.  Ella dances for the full hour.  She starts with a princess gown on and then gets too hot.  

Then later on in the day we had our friends Kate and Hope over.  

They were all princess ballerinas.  Very cute.  

The other day I was getting gas at costco.  I filled up and got back in to drive away.

The car was dead.  

Two nice guys helped me push my car out of the long costco line.  

They helped me try to jump it, they helped me scrap away the currosion. But alas... nothing. 

Thankful we were close the the Subaru dealer who sent someone over with some big tools 

and got the car started.  

So we sat. 

for 3 hours at the dealership. 

This is my kids. 

Zombies. 

We read books, drank several cups of hot cocoa, and ate even more bags of free popcorn.  

What a 6 year old does every extra waking moment of his day...

Tyler builds things every day.  This creation was so great he asked me to video it.  

Then his cousins and grandparents could see it.  

This is how his room looks every day.  I have come to term with it.  It is pushed in one corner.  It is better than a lot of other things he could be doing ....so sure... let him create all he wants.  

Ella was eating a bowl of cereal this morning.  She was looking at the bowl of mini wheats as she ate.  I had to grab a paper to write this one down-

This was her comment:

I wish I could be a cereal so someone could just eat me up.
That would be interesting
I wouldn't have any legs...
That would be interesting

I love my kids!

A pretty near perfect day...

This wasn't part of our perfect day... 

but this was a moment to remember as long as I am posting right now. 

This was my cabbage patch baby ... I have had her since I was very little.  All of my sisters have one so mine says Noelle on the neck since I used to go by Noelle.  (maybe I could change it back like Laura I mean Renee did!) This baby has been sewed up and loved. And earlier this week Ella loved it some more.

May you rest in peace my cabbage patch baby.  She was buried today.  In a tall black garbage can.  

So on to today... We started with wonderful snow. We went to pick up our bountiful basket.  15$ for all that fruit and veggies... AWESOME!!!  They have bountiful baskets all over the US.  It is such a steal! Since it was snowing the pick up was INSIDE the fire station.  The kids loved it. We took our time walking around.

The kids (and me) think it is so exciting to see what comes every time.  The blackberries are long gone and the watermelon, kiwi and pears wont last long either!  Fennel though... still need to find out what to do with ... fennel....

We ordered some yummy french bread too. 

So logically we had to come home and make some wonderful french toast. 

 Darren had a CycleCross bike race in this weather. We opted to stay home.  It was wonderful.  He came home tired, cold and hungry.  But happy.  Snow and mud is fun to play in I guess.

 Ella watched a Tinkerbell movie (in her princess dress) while Tyler built his marble race course.  I didn't even have to help him.  He is great at reading directions and doing it.  He still has hours to go until it is finished.

Finally Darren came home, we shoveled, took Toby for a walk, and went out shopping.  Tyler needed new snow boots.  Funny how his last year ones don't fit him this year!  He is a size 3 now.  A 6 year old ... a size 3.  Maybe he will be a great basketball player. 

Then we stopped at The Pie Pizzeria and had a great free meal (thanks to the company we just refinanced with).  It took an hour to get our food so the Pie gave us a free dessert. :)

Ella was begging to go to bed which is great. and it is day light savings tomorrow so sleeping in an extra hour will be wonderful. 

Loved the day.  loved the day.  

Darren is going to sign up for an ironman race.  I told him something I heard my mom say as a kid...

While the cats away the mice play. 

You bet... we will play and relax every Saturday that he is gone training. 

 Tyler has been building a lot with Legos lately.  He follows instructions great but is starting to create his own things now.  Ella wants to be just like him so she made a little ... plane... or rather some lego blocks stuck together with a propellor sticking out... plane... and wanted me to take a picture of her too.

She loves her brother.  They sleep in the same room by their own choice and love it. They are great friends.  She calls him brother... Hey brother... brother can you help me... thanks brother....

Finishing up October

We had a great Halloween Day. The whole day was fun.  I love having big kids that are a bit more grown up.  They didn't get grumpy as they day wore on.  

Here are a few cousins headed down to Grandma and Grandpas trunk or treat.  Their neighborhood is made up of lots of older couples who like to have grandkids around. We played games, ate good good and got a bag full of candy.  Tyler is a police man and Ella is a princess.  

 Tyler was also chosen to be the Eagle of the month in his class.  

It means he is a great kid... which he is!

(it was crazy sock day at school)

 Here is Ella doing her favorite activity, dressing up with her friends. 

(Kate and Hope)

 This was our weekend project.  We have a mound of dirt in our back yard with a nice retaining wall around it. But over time the dirt settled and made the wall settle funny.  So this weekend my great husband rebuilt the wall so it is nice and straight.  Yes he is working late into the night with a headlamp.  Talk about awesome.  I love having projects get finished and so does he!

 We celebrated cousin Michael and Jordans birthday on Sunday.  The hit of the party was the lego set present on the counter.  The boys didn't even come upstairs for cake. They were quite the whole time doing legos.... love it!

 Ella and Darren carved a pumpkin.

 The girls didn't go play legos they stayed up stairs with Grandpa.