Doing Stuff We Like!

I know you're all waiting for pictures of our basement, but you know what happened?  The basement got done, our stuff was moved around (and is still being moved around.  It'll take months to get it all "back to normal," I swear), we felt settled in again, and I started loving the stillness.  For instance, our living room currently has no pictures on the walls.  Rob said one day, "Doesn't the living room look so empty?"  My response was, "Yes!  Don't touch it!"  And that's pretty much how I feel about all of it.  Yes, it's quiet and empty and boring.  Don't touch it!  I need to get stuff done and take pictures and finish painting and and and and ...  Don't touch it!  It can wait.  I have apparently have needed some serious down time.  I'm FINALLY feeling up to finishing up the loose ends of the project.  So long as I don't have to do stuff every day.  For hours.  Long into the night.

We're finally back to doing stuff that we LIKE to do!  This last weekend, instead of spending yet another weekend stuck in our basement and not interacting with our kids, we decided to go camping and hiking.  Because that's just a little more awesome than re-arranging food on shelves.

We went back to Clifty Falls Indiana State Park, where Rob and I spent a weekend a few years back.  We wanted to go in the Spring time because the waterfalls that make up half of the park title are really more like water trickles during the summer.  And we're happy to announce that in late April, the falls were slightly better (for a comparison, here's the blog post with pictures from our first hike, late June 2012):

This is not the greatest picture of the main waterfall in the park, but I kinda love the shot.  I like that Miciah and I are up in the top right.  You really get a sense for the clifty and falls reasons for the park's name.  Also, notice that the waterfall actually has falling water.  You could hear the water from a distance.  Neither of those things are true in the summer time.

We really do love hiking and camping (even though I get the sense sometimes that this makes me lower class).  It's a great time to be together with less distractions AND enjoying nature.  There were a ton of wild flowers in the forest this time of year, and it was lovely.  Here's me and the kids on the trail:

Elijah wasn't happy that we insisted he follow the park rules and stay on the trail.  My favorite line of the day was when Rob pointed to a "Stay on Designated Path" sign and said, "Elijah, I want you to read that sign and tell me what you think it means."  Elijah thought we were trying to ruin his life by forcing him to not have fun.  He hung in there long enough to get to the part of the trail where scrambling over rocks and doing your own thing are encouraged:  the creek bed!

As he got to the top of every large boulder, he would pose for his Conqueror shot.  Rob started telling him no before Elijah even asked.  How many hero pictures does one person need in a day?  My favorite one is the following "action" shot, of Elijah climbing back down:

He made up that pose and then held it for about 20 seconds so that Rob could get the shot exactly as Elijah wanted.  Rob finally started telling him no on fake action shots, too.

We scrambled all around the creek bed and had a lot of fun doing so until the kids got tired and whiny.  Exacerbating this issue was the fact that while Teancom was climbing on a log, about 6 inches off the ground, the log snapped and nearly gave him and me both a heart attack!  Teancom was clearly in a little bit of shock, and I was temporarily alarmed until I fully assessed the situation and realized he was fine.  We kept hiking, but as we went along, Teancom became more and more worked up about it all.  I would have thought that it would have temporarily caused him some anxiety, but after a little time passed, he'd be mostly back to normal.  But I underestimated the super powers of our Champion Worrier!  After another 20 minutes or so had passed, Teancom was saying the phrase, "I'm going to die," about every 30 seconds.

I am happy to report that Teancom didn't, in fact, die.  I'm sure you were wondering.

(Pretend I wrote a side note here about Teancom's anxiety issues.  I think it's fascinating, and I'm not quite sure what to do about it all, and it's an important part of Teancom's life story, but I don't really want to go into excessive detail at this exact moment because this is a post about hiking!)

Once we were off the creek bed, Tank was fine.  Elijah decided that he wanted to run as fast as he could back up the ravine.  We said that was okay, but to wait for us at the top, where the trail forks.  Rob and I walked rather slowly with two whiny children who couldn't be convinced that this was fun even though I said it was plenty of times.  When we got to the top, Elijah was nowhere to be seen.  Of course.

Rob took off walking fast to the car, where we figured Elijah would be waiting.  But you never know, and it was probably a mile and a half until we would find out.  Enough time to be worried.  The first couple that passed by Rob told him that they'd indeed seen a little boy, about yea high, who had said, "They're back there.  They're hiking too slow," and who had "a pretty good lead on ya."  Knowing that Elijah hiked the right direction from the fork was a relief.  It's a 4.5 mile trail (and who knows if he would have stayed on it!).

It was a good opportunity to tell Teancom about my philosophy about worrying, which is:  Do as little of it as possible.  I HATE feeling worried or anxious.  I reject them as worthwhile feelings.  So even though I was still a little concerned, and I found myself hiking faster than I thought (and leaving Teancom well behind me, shouting at me to slow down), it was a great way to help Teancom talk about the difference between feeling concerned and a little worried, and letting that anxiety ruin your life.  He made the connection to the rocks and his "I'm going to die" episode himself.  Smart kid.

No, Elijah didn't get yelled at too much when we finally caught up with him.  Rob talked to him gently while Elijah rolled his eyes because of COURSE he knew the right way to go and why was Dad freaking out anyway.  By the time I arrived at the car, I got to smile and leave it be.  Perfect.

Bonus picture:

Teancom modeling his "pig nose."  Made me laugh.

Oh!  We decided in the end that the best time of year to see the "falls" at their highest water volume is probably during the snow melt.  But I'd suggest Spring as an AWESOME time to go.  Not a lot of bugs, perfect temperatures, wild flowers, new green, and enough water to at least make the falls cute.