Climb On!

This past weekend, Jeff and I had the pleasure of taking a crew of 7 on a most excellent adventure - rock climbing at a local climbing gym!  The kids were enthusiastic when they arrived, and Jeff and I reveled in the chance to climb again -  with the added bonus of hanging out with some awesome kids (other than our own!) for a few hours!

Nothing could have made the day any more fun or any better than it was....well, if I'd remembered to take a group picture, THAT would have been perfect.  It would also have been awesome if I'd managed to get at least ONE picture of every amazing climber, instead of lots of pics of just the same few.... However, the highly amusing videos that the kids made and the many (many!) funny/blurry photos they took while I was distracted by making sure everyone stayed alive during our climbing adventure made up for the lack of the group pic and the other pics, too. 

A recap, in photos:

A natural climber for certain.  Do we call him Spiderman?

And to think she (T) was a teensy bit nervous!

Climb on, A.  (she was my official rope tier, too)

We *may or may not* have instructed Jeff to hold this pose and flex his calf for the purpose of a great photo op...

So much fun!

Love this shot of the three of us climbing/bouldering together... (A, J, and Yours Truly)

Belay on?  On belay!  Climbing? Climb on!

So proud of this girl (R) and how hard she worked to climb this wall in particular!

Post-climbing and post-pizza, we played several rounds of Apples To Apples, which is kind of becoming our official youth group game...

I'm so grateful to these kids and for this experience and for the time we shared and the trust we built and the teamwork we enjoyed.  I love that I depended on A. to help me out with tying the knots properly.  I love how C. belayed not only me but most of the kids in our group, as well.  I loved hearing them all encourage each other, applaud each other, and praise each other's determination and efforts.

As we said our goodbyes that afternoon, many of us were asking the same question - When can we go rock climbing again???