Christmas tree climbing

A holiday with my family would not be complete without an adventure of some sort.  This year my mom arranged for us to all have a family tree-climbing ropes course with a friend of hers that teaches the sport as a business (Dancing With Trees).  The instructor, Genevieve, accommodated ages four and up, so even Nora got to participate!

We used a double rope technique with friction knots.  The method involves a foot loop and a friction knot - when you stand up in the foot loop you take the weight off the main friction knot that holds your harness.  You then can slide the main friction knot up your rope.  Then when you sit back in the harness you are higher up, and you can then bring up the foot loop to your new position and do it again.  It is a great full body work-out!  One nice feature of the system is that you get to stop and rest and just hang or swing in your harness whenever you want.  

Elsa had no hesitation at all.  She was actually the first one to get harnessed up.  She was so calm and listened so carefully to the instructor.

Soon she was off the ground and above our heads!

We told her she could stay there and swing, but she wanted to keep going!  She eventually made it to the top of her rope, about 30 feet up!

The children got to take a special friend up with them.  Elsa chose to take a little monkey from the instructor's collection.  We also all took up some bubbles.

Nora watched Elsa intently.  When we asked if she was ready she eagerly nodded yes and we stuffed the little squirrel she had chosen to climb with into her bag.

She made it to about shoulder height,

and then was very happy for us to take turns swinging her.  The rope was anchored so high in the tree that it made a terrific arc!

Elsa just kept going up and up.  She took lots of breaks to look around, watch us climb, and blow bubbles (she is up on the left in the picture below).  My sister Naomi had just made it to the first branch and Joel is just getting started in this picture:

Yea, mom!

Beatrice slept for a good while at the beginning.  She woke up just when all of us had fully left the ground, so the instructor, Genevieve, was on baby duty!  (Beatrice is the pink in the instructor's arms, down with Nora.)

And Elsa kept going!

In this photo Naomi is on the left and Elsa is on the right.

One advantage of family gatherings where there's more than one camera is that then there's some photos of me, too!

My some of the work for my M.S. degree involved tree climbing, so it was a bit strange at first to be doing it for fun and to not feel like I had to be checking the time or my lab equipment as I went!

Joel's and Naomi's ropes were anchored the highest in the tree.  This is their victory photo near the top.

Here they are at their summit.  The black arrow is where Elsa reached.  (Can you tell how proud I am of her?  After I got down I realized just how high she had gone and it did catch my breath for a moment!)

Sweetness

She just looked sweet so I took a picture. 

Sillies

Since having her hair done at the Fancy Nancy boutique Elsa has requested the I recreate the look for her several times.  This particular time she asked me to take a picture.  Then Nora did not want to be left out.  Then Elsa wanted back in and things got very silly.

(I just love this perfect shot of Nora!)

Silly time!

Splendiferous Holiday Hairdos

We love the Fancy Nancy books and all the big, "fancy" words she uses, so when one of the local libraries offered a free Fancy Nancy Splendiferous Holiday Hairdo Boutique, we had to go and check it out.  While we waited for our turn they had tables with hot cocoa, coloring pages, cookie decorating, and a little craft.  (And this was just one of many Christmas events - we have some really nice libraries around here!)  Nora decided to just watch, so she and one of our friends (with the green "Christmas Tree" hair-do, in front) watched as Elsa was done-up.

I think Fancy Nancy would approve!

Christmas Cookies with Daddy

I'm not very good about "taking it easy," especially when there's a particular way I like to do things.  So I was rather proud of myself for buying a box of cookie mix for Christmas.  I wanted to let the girls have fun with it, but I had no bandwidth left for baking several kinds of cookies from scratch this season.  So I saw a box of cookie mix and I bought it.  I pulled out the red and green sprinkles from last year and voila!  (I even let Joel be the one to get messy with them!)

Here is Daddy showing us how it is done.

And the clean-up was really easy!  By the time the girls had licked themselves clean there wasn't much more to do!

Thanksgiving with the Dunhams

We drove north to Joel's parents' home for Thanksgiving.  Since all of Dunham siblings and families made it to town we did a lot of Christmas-y things together, so it almost felt more like Christmas than Thanksgiving!  

One of the highlights for the girls was that it snowed one day.  Enough for one teeny snowman!

Elsa and Nora loved helping to decorate the tree with Aunt Carrie and Uncle Gabe.  I think Elsa is whistling Christmas Carols.

It wasn't hard for Betsy to get all the girls busy crafting.  She had everything together for us to melt crayon bits and swirl them in glass ornaments.  They turned out really pretty!

She also had projects for the little girls while we did ours.

 We also kept up the traditional series of Setters games.

I now have so many photos of the family playing Settlers with Andrew making a strange face that I think the holiday would feel incomplete if I didn't include one!

So far Lincoln just has cute faces.

Beatrice and Grandpa.

Those of us who were not going to be there for Christmas also exchanged presents.  Beatrice thought Aunt Heidi's wrapping paper was rather tasty.

And, finally, for those who missed it on Facebook, Joel and Andrew now have matching Sesame Street pajamas.  And Joel has even stretched the definition of ugly Christmas sweater" and worn his to a Christmas party.  

Dragon Park

We discovered Dragon Park in Carbondale this year!  It was new to Joel because it was only made in the last ten years, built by a family in memory of their teenage son who loved Dungeons and Dragons and Tolkien's novels and such.  Joel and his brother Andrew loved all that too when they were teenagers.  Though I should change that to the present tense - they still do :)  We had a great time exploring the winding maze-like passages in the castle, finding unicorns and fairy hidden in gardens, climbing on sea monsters, and making friends with the dragon.  

Elsa really liked this little gargoyle on the highest tower - she thought he looked like a chameleon!

It was a VERY cold day and we weren't dressed warm enough, so we didn't stay as long as we would have liked too.  The kids all lasted just long enough for Nana to get a photo with all the grandkids + Joel.