Category Archives: Adventure

Canoeing Adventure

Posted on June 28, 2010 by Jeana| Leave a comment

On the day before my birthday, we decided to go down to Lady Bird Lake to go canoeing.

Right as we pulled into the parking lot, we noticed Blair and Wendy pulling in behind us, so we all ended up going together.  It was a good thing they were there because we found out that we could only have two kids in our boat.  So, Kate rode with them at the beginning for a little while and then Audrey did at the end.

Simon started out brave and standing, but by the end was whining and burying his head in my lap.

Audrey started out scared and cautious, but by the end she was brave enough to stand up.

And Kate was just a delight the whole time out there.  She really was so stinkin’ fun and cute and helped Audrey (her older sister) to be a little braver.

We had so much fun looking at all the turtles on the lake.  There were tons of them all lined up on the logs.

After our canoeing adventure, we all went to Flip Happy for some delicious crepes.

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Posted in Adventure, Audrey, Birthday, Canoeing, Family, Kate, Outdoors, Simon

Mesa Verde

Posted on August 24, 2009 by Scott| 2 Comments

The cliff dwellingsHiking to the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde

We decided to make an impromptu stop at Mesa Verde national park on our way through Colorado this year. The day was hot and long, but I am glad we did it!

Jeana and Simon @ Mesa VerdeExploring the cliff dwellings

The cliff dwellings were really awesome – they were 60 feet deep looking back into the cave! And the hole thingies (I can’t remember what they were called) were really deep too.

Jeana and Simon down in a holeAudrey climbing out of one of the hole thingies

The “hole thingies” were a place where the dwellers would pray for rain, so Jeana told Audrey and Kate to pray for rain while they were down in there.

Kate and Audrey looking down into the hole

After a long day of walking around in the dusty cliff, you can only imagine how gross and nasty feet and flip-flops could become.

Gross feet

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Posted in Adventure, Colorado, Vacation 2009

ARG Challenge 09

Posted on August 11, 2009 by Jeana| Leave a comment

On June 27th, I competed in the ARG Challenge for the third year in a row.  (I know it was a long time ago, but better late than never, right?) This time I did it with Brenna.    It had been crazy hot the week of the race and so they cut out some of the trekking part and had us spend a little more time on the water.

Navigation

We started off with trekking about a mile and a half to find the first four cp’s.  Along the way, we picked up our third teammate, an egg named, Richard.  Here’s a quick story about Richard: I totally forgot to reserve a kayak for us in advance, so by the time I called, they were all gone.  So, I emailed out the Adventure Racing group and asked if anyone had a kayak I could rent.  A guy named Richard replied back and let us use his.  So, when we got to the point where we were supposed to get our eggs and the one on top had the name “Richard” written on it, I viewed it as a good omen and took it.

Kayaking

We got back and did the kayak/trek portion where we got all the cp’s, but got a little turned around with directions.  We then headed out for the biking portion.  We had gone out the week before and checked out the trail so this one was pretty straight forward for us.

Biking Brenna

When we got back, we saw Jamie and her girls there cheering us on.  (Our families had decided to stay home, since it was just too hot for our little babies.)  Jamie said that the top three teams were already back and the people who got first place took about an hour on the last kayaking portion.

the last leg

We only had 1 1/2 hours until the cut off, so we knew it would be close.  We trudged through some very nasty grass in the water that was way taller than us to get to a cp on land.  And one cp we looked for forever, before we had a moment of luck and scrambled up a ledge to find the cp just at the top of it.  In the end we got back about 10 minutes before the cut off and we got all of the check points.  We were pretty happy with that.

after the race

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Posted in Adventure, Jeana, Outdoors

Camping at Enchanted Rock

Posted on October 26, 2008 by Scott| 10 Comments

We paid homage again this year to one of the so-called places to climb in Texas. And by homage, I mean we climbed less this year than last year (i.e. not at all). That’s ok. Jeana is six months pregnant and the pregnant belly may not be conducive to agile climbing.

We learned some funny things about the Wayes on this outing, which I have no problem blogging about since they’re moving away from us soon. I will miss them. First, Becca has issues with some funny things: sand in her nails, fish, and eating meat off bones (although this is dwindling with the advent of Texas BBQ). Second, Scot told us a funny story about him running full speed into a chain parking lot barrier and falling face-first into the pavement. Thanks for the laugh. And, thanks for bringing Bernie to entertain our children. Oh, and thanks again because now they want a pet dog!

Ocean was so thoughtful of Jeana by offering her a piece of licorice. Jeana declined the offer, but Ocean insisted on keeping track of a certain piece of licorice in case Jeana changed her mind. Jeana sat at the campfire watching Ocean caress the licorice in her hands and thread it through her toes. Ocean asked for another piece, to which Adam replied that she already had one. Ocean told Adam that piece belonged to Jeana. When Jeana said she didn’t want it, Ocean caressed and threaded more, and finally took a bite.

While in Utah at my parents’ house this summer, my dad carved some walking sticks for Audrey and Kate. Yesterday we finally took a hike for the girls to use the sticks for their intended purpose (rather than just play with them around the house with some sort of princess theme) up to the top of “Enchanted Rock”. Kate surprised me and made it up a good portion of the hike – she was a good little hiker.

Poor Audrey. Audrey had school pictures on Friday so she dressed up a bit. Jeana packed her camping gear for her so that we could just pick Audrey up from school and drive straight to our destination. I paid our entrance fee after arriving, and when I returned to the car, Jeana told me we had a problem. Jeana had grabbed two right shoes for Audrey. You see, Audrey and Kate have the same shoes, except that Kate’s are smaller. Oh well, what can you do? Scot asked me at the campfire, “So what’s the deal with Audrey’s shoes?” As if she had some “condition” – just kidding. Despite the two right feet, Audrey hiked all the way to the top and most of the way back down before complaining. In fact, she and Jackson were racing to the top of the hike! I found it easy to take pity on her and carry her on my shoulders part of the way down.

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Posted in Adventure, Audrey, Camping, Friends, Jeana, Kate, Outdoors, Texas

A day off of school

Posted on October 13, 2008 by Jeana| 7 Comments

Today was Columbus day/teacher inservice so Audrey had the day off.  We had such a fun day.  We started with a half mile jog around the block.  Audrey is doing this thing called Marathon Kids.  She’s supposed to run a little bit each week so that by the end of February she will have run a total of 26.2 miles.  After our half mile I needed a little bit more of a run so Audrey got on her bike (which she can now ride without training wheels, btw) and I loaded Kate into the jog stroller with her bike across the top.  We ran/rode over to a street where there aren’t any houses yet and let Audrey and Kate ride all around.  Audrey used to stop by crashing, but she was doing really good today to slow down and put her feet down.

After that we made a quick trip to the library, and then headed over to the Arboretum for a picnic, some good cow fun, and some letter boxing.

Our neighbor Jim gave them some green kid sized HEB bags and they carried them every where today.  Somebody put bubbles in the fountains today so there were suds flying all over the place.  Audrey and Kate really wanted to play in the bubbles, but I wouldn’t let them because I saw a bunch of dead flies and disgusting-ness stuck in the suds.

I don’t quite get the Arboretum cows.  What’s their story?  All I know is they are a big hit with the kids.

Okay, so the letter boxing:  Jodi introduced us to letter boxing at the family reunion.  You look on this website and find where a box is hidden near you.  It gives you directions on how to get to your letter box like this:

“From the black cow, go 20 steps to the right towards the largest tree in the plaza with a big hollow trunk. The letterbox is hidden in the hollow of the trunk.”

It’s kind of like geocaching, but for kids.  There is a stamp in the box you find and you use it to stamp your own little notebook.  Then leave your own personal stamp along with your stamper nickname in a notebook in the box.  I’m not explaining this well, so if you’re truly interested, look at the website.

Anyway, we followed all the steps and the box wasn’t there.  We were sad but determined to stamp something, so we just stamped our own stamps in our notebooks anyway.  Kate kept saying to us, “Okay guys, here’s what we have to do.  We have to follow the clues to find the treasure.”  For some reason it just wasn’t sinking in for her that we weren’t going to find it.  Since we’ve only done it once, they really weren’t too disappointed about it not being there. I asked them what their favorite part of the day was and Audrey said that stamping their books was.  Kate said that looking for the treasure was her favorite.

My personal favorite part of the day was when Scott asked them what they did today and they were so excited that they were talking over each other telling him about our adventures.  He turned to me and said, “See what a fun mom you are?”  I needed that.

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Posted in Adventure, Audrey, Kate