apAdventures

Yesterday was dubbed “the v6 day.” As soon as Brian announced that he was interested in getting on See Spot Run, v6 we decided that we all had to send one of the grade. After falling from the last move of See Sharp on Day 1, Jen was anxious to clean up. And I had always wanted to try Short Order Cook, having never been on it.

Well, Brian flashed See Spot Run. Jen walked See Sharp. So now it’s the end of the day, starting to get dark and the pressure’s on to hold up my end of the deal by sending Short Order Cook. And I did! Go team v6!

Sorry, no photos were snapped of Short Order Cook. But below are some other goodies of the cute kiddos to make up for it.

Brian committing to See Spot Run, v6

Jen atop See Sharp, v6 after (what looked like) an effortless send

Oren gettin’ wild

Construction zone – do not enter!

Linda and Ty looking almost as adorable as the kiddos

Twilight at the boulders

Sherpa Paul trying to stay sane on a climbing trip that he can’t climb on

Silas eating all the chocolate chips out of the trail mix again and Seb pretending not to notice so as not to get his buddy into trouble (my theory, anyway)

Rest day! Time to clean the children. Ivan digging his baths in the kitchen sink.

posted by arr

Where oh where do I begin when it comes to all the things I’m thankful for? I’ll keep it simple: my loving family, my awesome friends, and great boulder problems, hehe. Happy Thanksgiving from Hueco Tanks!

Prepping for the big dinner

…which included special guests Linda and Ty who drove down from Colorado to join us for the weekend!

“Chef Linda” (as Silas lovingly refers to her as) sizzlin’ up some bacon for the brussel sprouts

Brian and Jen tag teaming the green beans and mashed potatoes

Ty preparing the butternut squash

Silas wanting to taste-test my homemade pumpkin pies

Oren entertaining Ivan

and Seb just lookin’ darn cute

and let’s not forget the turkey, gravy, bread, maple glazed beets, homemade cranberry sauce, and tasty red wine. Alright! Time to eat already!!

posted by arr

My apologies for the lack of webposts. We’ve been busy climbing! (Well, I’ve been climbing. Paul is still momentarily out of the game on account of his finger). We’re at Hueco right now for an extended stay…almost 2 weeks! And our Pittsburgh climbing buddies are here with us too! The first couple planned climbing days were postponed due to snow, ice and rain. But all is good now – warm in the sun, cold in the shade. Conditions don’t get any better than this. Here are a few highlights from the start of our trip:

An excellent kickoff to the trip – Brian and I send T-Bone Shuffle, v4 on our first day

Day 2, Brian ticks Uncut Yogi, v6

…and Jen finds her proj, Sex After Death, v8. After just a few tries she realizes this one has sending potential for this trip…exciting!!

A rare, quiet moment at the boulders with all the children

and Silas keeping warm under my project for the trip Better Eat Your Wheaties, v8…which I’m quite ecstatic to say FINALLY has sending potential! I’ve stuck the first move now a dozen or so times and have worked out some of the next moves. Time to start linking it together!!!!! Did I really just write that??!?!! Woohoo!!!!

posted by arr

The last week and a half has been nothing but playmates galore for Silas and Ivan. First they got an invite to a 3 year old’s birthday party. Not only were there plenty of other kids in attendance, but the party was held at My Gym, which is basically a giant romper room. Whoa. Next we hosted a Halloween Party with local friends and their kids, complete with costumes, backyard “trick-or-treating”, homemade popcorn balls and pretzel ghosts. Ooooo. And then last weekend we linked up at Hueco with a couple we had met in South Africa who now live in the states and have two kids of their own, as well as friends of their’s with yet another kid. Oh my.

Silas has so many little friends now I wonder if he can keep them all straight. Who am I kidding, of course he can. And I know Ivan loves them all by the permanent smile on his face as he runs around squealing.

Gotta love the little people.

Silas showing off his gymnastics skills at the birthday party

Ivan making a new friend

Prepping for Halloween. Silas’ toothy-grin pumpkin on the left. Ivan’s “excited Ivan face” pumpkin on the right

The ghost pretzels for the party

And this year’s Halloween costumes! Silas wanted to be a yellow jet. A jet that can put his wings out, or tuck them in for a landing. A yellow one with blue stripes. And a propeller. And Ivan had to be one too, only blue (This is all according to Silas of course. Poor Ivan didn’t get a choice. Although I don’t think he minded much. 😉

Wings out and ready for takeoff (Silas’ pointy fingers are his lights. The lights always come on when the wings are out. Even during storytime at the Library when he’s not wearing his costume).

Party time

I was a cooking witch this Halloween, not a flying witch. Hence the apron versus a cape.

On to Hueco. An East Mountain Tour, 5 kids and 6 adults. At least we weren’t outnumbered!

Silas must have taught his new buddies how to fly

And with all these climbing kids come climbing mama’s and dad’s. Strong mama’s at that! Magdel battling the first move of Better Eat Your Wheaties, v8

Linda sending Squeeze Me Tender, v3

Paul and Greg spotting Lee on the upper section of Chutes and Ladders, v9/10

The dads looking all suave

The “excited Ivan face”

And a happy Silas

posted by arr

…see you at Hueco!

My latest obsession (among many), Bush League v8

Still waiting for that first hold on Better Eat Your Wheaties v8 to magically migrate closer to my right hand

In it for the long haul. Downtime under The Bloody Flapper Traverse v9 again this season

Quite possibly Silas’ favorite place to sleep in the whole wide world: the van

And his favorite place to play: the rocks

He’s sturdy, he’s independent, and most importantly….he doesn’t eat dirt anymore. This season is gonna be a breeze compared to last!

posted by arr

Daytime temps are cooling, nights are crisp and we’re back to the same ‘ol same ‘ol that we love, Hueco Tanks, Texas. The start of this season has been a bit of a bummer though for Paul. His finger has been bothering him all summer so he went to see a hand specialist last week. Diagnosis: bone fracture! Paul has now entered the ranks of those climbers that have climbed so hard they broke their own finger. It probably happened sometime in the spring (ahem, the crimps on Nagual maybe?). It sounds hardcore and all to say it like that, but I can guarantee he doesn’t feel too hardcore watching me crank on my Hueco projects while he plays sherpa. With 2 shots of cortisone in the finger, he’s been directed to take six weeks off from any climbing/gripping activity. In the meantime, to stay psyched he’s continuing to train any way he can. He’s become obsessive over mastering the planche.

See the little bone fragment that the arrow is pointing to as a result of the fracture

posted by arr

For some self-centered reason I’m sure, watching video of myself climbing gets me amped. Paul too. So I put together this short snippet of footage we took last season at Hueco and thought I’d share. Hopefully it motivates for hard training!

Click on the picture to play the video

Posted by arr

Well, turns out there probably won’t be any grand finale Hueco weekend after all. Our plans of heading there one last time over the weekend got shut down by a nasty stomach bug…(which I suspect we picked up at Silas’ gymnastics class given the fore-warning by the grandpa of one of Silas’ little classmates of violently vomiting gymnasts). It knocked our entire family out Wednesday night through Sunday. Yep. Yuck. And now it’s hot. And the next few weekends are booked. So, that’s a wrap people! Hueco will just have to wait till the fall. I am a bit bummed to not be heading straight back to tick off Mr. Serious, v8, but as Paul pointed out this week, now I get to look forward to a quick send when we head back later this year…which will be a nice little motivating goal to keep me from lounging too much by the pool with margaritas in hand during the hot Tucson summer. 😉

As a parting gift, here are some of my favorite “playtime” photos from the season. Oh the places the kid’s toys have gone. Enjoy!

Truck on stick at the repair shop

Dump truck giving orders in the hueco

The jet plane (from Seb and Oren) towing the whole gang up the mountain

Not sure what this one is. If I had to guess, it’s probably a parking garage

Dinosaur eating his snack

A cool play spot in a precarious place

Parked for the night

After seeing an owl one night while peeing at the campsite, Silas’ fascination with Hueco’s dams was quickly replaced by Hueco’s owls. This stuffed owl from Aunties Jude and Ann soon emerged from the bottom of the toybox and joined us on many a Hueco adventure.

The owl in his nest keeping his eggs warm (yes, “he”)

The eggs

Bare belly in dirt. The usual.

Besides eating rocks and dirt, Ivan also loves to motor around with rod-shaped objects in his chubby little hands…like sticks, screwdrivers, wrenches, etc. Here, he’s fallen asleep with Silas’ socket wrench in his iron grip. What’s interesting is that we remember Silas loving to trail around strings and cords at this age. To each his own.

Dump truck being bossy again

“The train”

And here, nature got the best of the toys. No kid can resist a pile of leaves.

See you in the fall Hueco!

posted by arr

Even though we may be the only vehicle in the parking lot, the Hueco season is not over yet for us. My forced rest turned out to be the right decision because I had an AMAZING weekend! Sex After Death, v8 is done!! As well as Smokin’ Sausage, v4 (a pumpy endurance climb in the Sausage Factory with somewhat of a committing topout due to a slab behind your head; a climb I had always been either too pumped or too chicken to complete), a flash of Weenie Roast, v4, a repeat of The Give, v3, a near send of the 4-star classic Star Power, v5, and a link through the crux moves of Mr. Serious, v8!!!!

Although I am quite pleased with my tick of Sex After Death, I am just as excited about my efforts on Mr. Serious. I had never tried this line before because I’d always been “saving it” for “someday when I’m a v8 climber.” I hadn’t planned on trying it this season for not only the reason just stated but also because it’s in a non-kid-friendly sort of place. The line is on a massive boulder that’s wedged between and under a couple other massive boulders with a steep sloping, polished landing provided by yet another massive boulder. It’s a pretty sweet place – without kids, that is. Trying it meant no spot, no one to move my pads, and no one to even be up there with me because Paul would have to be down at ground level with the kids. However, thanks to my extremely psyched and motivating Paul, I was eventually convinced that my current crimp strength and lockoff power is suited perfectly for Mr. Serious and we’d figure out the kid situation somehow. We always do. Turns out, Paul was right. Alone, I quickly figured out my beta and nailed the crux move (moving off the small slopey pocket) with ease. And once it was time for Ivan to nap on Paul in the carrier, we grabbed some books for Silas to keep him stationary and I was able to have the whole family safely up on the landing with me, cheering me on. It wasn’t nearly as crazy as I had envisioned all this time.

I’m extremely psyched because I know I can most likely tick this one next trip. My only regret is that I may have forfeited an opportunity to send it in a day. On the go that I nailed the crux with ease I had started one dinky move in because I was, what I thought, still working out my beta. I was only able to nail the crux just that one time. It being day 2, that was my window of power. Had I started with my right hand on the start hold, that very well could have been a send in a day! Aahh, how easy it is to succumb to a climber’s greed, haha.

Meanwhile, Paul continues to make slow yet steady progress on Nagual, v13. He also cleaned up sends of Mr. Smiley, v9, Serious Legends, v9, and Shroom, v9.

Send! The opening sequence of Sex After Death, v8

Sticking what was the crux move for me for many years. After this I just had make big moves and hold on

Getting set up for a suuuper fun drop knee move to get to the small slopey pocket on Mr. Serious, v8

Grabbing the small slopey pocket

Working out my beta. Left foot up to do the crux move out right or right foot up?

Tried the left foot a whole bunch of times (shown here), then decided to change it to a right foot which was when I stuck the move. See the crimps up and right – the first is an intermediate, the second is the money

Happy that my boys can join me up on the landing

A small scoop in the sloped landing proves perfect for a small bum

Photo sequence of Paul on Shroom, v9

Sticking the big move on Shroom. “Send it dad!” yells a tiny voice from below

Giving credit where credit’s due: I really think it’s the hauling of 4 pads and 2 kids to Nagual that’s making us stronger, not all of our training and Hueco projecting, haha

posted by arr

Well, the kids stole the show this weekend. Ivan took his first steps (!!!!!) and Silas schooled me on all my Hueco projects. Paul and I climbed a lot. A LOT! We even ventured up onto West Mountain to try some different stuff…which took some extensive round-about adventuring to get the kids safely up to the climbs. But no big number sends to report. Paul tore a hole in his fingertrip on his first climb of the weekend and thus wasn’t able to even try to attempt the razor crimps on Nagual, v13. I came REALLY close to sending Sex After Death, v8 (and am totally blaming it solely on a botched move), all while Bloody Flapper Traverse, v9 slowly starts to bake in the warming desert temps while I continue to fall from the final move. Good thing we’ve got these kids with us to keep the action rolling.

Silas on top of his warm-up climb

Ivan warming up his newly found walking legs

Mama’s taking a rest from her project. Time to go “cookoo crazy”!

All chalked up and ready to try Sex After Death, v8

He pulls on…

“Did you see dat mama?!”

Meanwhile, with big brother busy climbing, Ivan jumps on the opportunity to play with the diggers!

Next up, Star Power, v5

“Mama. You jus need to put your weft foot here and your wight foot here.”

“You got it mama!”

Beta boy

Ivan eyeing up his own boulder problem to climb

Forget the walking, this is way easier

Paul trying to keep up with his boys by sending Long Dong, v6

The finish of Long Dong. STELLAR boulder problem.

Silas isn’t impressed.

posted by arr