I’m looking around my house at all of the summer projects that didn’t get done. The weeds in the back yard are taking over the trampoline. (I’m sure I pulled them at least once… I remember having poison ivy to show for it.) The oversized three car garage STILL will only hold one car. The tub wall is looking more and more like it’s going to buckle if I don’t get it regrouted soon. And, even after Rick’s organizational efforts after reading the book “Getting Things Done,” the office still looks like we don’t own one file cabinet let alone the six that we actually do own.

But, not to worry… fall is approaching and I have new energy. This is the season that I can get it all done!

Most people view the spring as a time for rebirth and renewal and new beginnings. Graduations, weddings, blossoming flowers, and high hopes abound with the promise of warm weather and summer vacation just ahead. I, on the other hand, am relishing in the fact that cooler weather is on its way and I can put another summer behind me. The fall is my season of new beginnings.

And, no, it’s not because I get rid of my children when they go back to school. Well… not entirely.

Through much self-analysis… and maybe a couple of therapy sessions over the years, I’ve decided that my passion for autumn stems from having grown up on the farm.

Although I am thankful for my rural upbringing in many ways, the summers were painfully lonely to a young girl growing up in the 80s. In my childhood, back to school meant fun, friends and a social life. It meant escaping the drudgery of mowing for hours on end, trying to keep a herd of pigs cool, and making lunch and dinner each day for a crew of hungry farm hands. Back to school meant a fresh start!

Those feelings have carried into adulthood and I am trying to convey them to the kids as they begin their new school year. I don’t think I’m succeeding because they look at me as if I’m nuts. Maybe I should send them down to my parents’ each summer. Or maybe THEY should have cleaned the garage, weeded the back yard, and regrouted the tub.

I’ve successfully planned this weekend down to the last minute so I can’t possibly get to any of those chores. (Hmmm… maybe THAT’s why they didn’t get done all summer.) Either way, this is going to be a fun-filled few days.

Rick and I are kid-free tonight so we are going to Brew at the Zoo, an after hours, adult-only event with entertainment, food and …you guessed it…beer. Ticket price of $45 includes 10 samples of beer, appetizers and live music.

Tomorrow we will head to Mount Vernon to watch Caryn in a cross country invitational and then race back to the Shoe to watch Susan cheer in one of the Kirk Herbstreit Varsity Football series games. There are two games on Saturday: Upper Arlington vs. St. Thomas Aquinas and Westerville South vs. Hilliard Davidson. Two games on Sunday are Olentangy Liberty vs. Dublin Coffman and Pickerington Central vs. Orange Lutheran. What fun for the players, the cheerleaders and the band members to be able to perform at Ohio Stadium! Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for children.

Sunday, we are going to do our “long run” (8 miles if I can stand the beeping) and then watch Jack play in his junior football league game, the Vikings vs. the Redskins. Go Vikings!

I will definitely get the garage cleaned out next weekend. Or, possibly one after that. Or, there’s always next summer.

Have you ever watched moms and their kids on the first day of school? Some of the kids are clinging and hanging behind, some are skipping ahead to the bus stop with their friends. Some mothers are getting teary; others look like they are about to break out into a dance.

When I first became a mom, I was kind of thrown into the role as a stepmother to an adorable kindergartener. I cried every year, watching him step on the bus in his carefully chosen first-day-back outfit, shiny clean tennis shoes, and spanking new backpack filled to the brim with top of the line school supplies.

After having Grace… and then Jack… and, now, with our huge combined family, the tears come about two weeks before school starts.

“Everyone ELSE is back in school. What’s wrong with our district?”

So I have been humming “It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” skipping through the grocery store, riding my cart… just like the guy in the office supply store commercial. The beginning of school could not come fast enough for my taste!

I’m not sure where the summer went. It flew by in a flurry of swim meets, graduation parties, anniversary celebrations and one long vacation. But, as quickly as it passed, I am ready for it to be over!

For me, back to school means cool, crisp autumn mornings… football Friday nights… Saturday Buckeye games… fall colors and, most importantly, OCCUPIED children — occupied children that are someone else’s responsibility for at least six hours a day.

The last few weeks have me completely frayed at the edges. I have four children in four different schools with four different schedules , four different sports’ obligations, four different clothing needs, and four different school supply lists to be fulfilled. (Not to mention Lauren who, although she doesn’t have to have new school clothes and supplies, she still needs constant supervision and at least a little one-on-one attention now and then.)

Since school hadn’t started yet, but the extracurricular events had, I have been the transportation. I’m not sure I’ve gotten a solid 15 minutes of work done in the last two weeks. If I’m not running one of them to some sort of practice, I am trying to remotely mediate one of their sibling battles that have become far more commonplace in these last few weeks of summer.

So when I dropped Jack off for his first day of school this morning, I was one of the dancing moms. With dry eyes, I watched him go with his scuffed up tennis shoes and his ragged backpack from last year filled with a mishmash of old school supplies leftover from years past. (Grandma splurged for a new shirt.)

Ok… I’ll admit it… I had to dig out a tissue when I got back to my car. He is the youngest, after all. And this is his last year in elementary school.

We’ll see how I do tomorrow when I drop off Gracie.

Beep… beep… beep… “There you go…you’re stretching your legs out a little more…picking up the pace…you always do that when you’re tired…we’re at 8:30 now… we were just at 9:45.” Beep… beep… beep — Rick on this morning’s five mile run.

He doesn’t know how close I am to running with a pair of scissors hidden in my pocket when I run with him.

I’ve known Rick for 7 ½ years, seven of which he was adamantly a non-runner…bad back, bad knees, no way he was going to run again.

But we’re still newlyweds and I love spending time with him. So I pushed and prodded and got him to run with me a few times when I was training for the Capital City Half Marathon. What better way to spend more time together than to exercise together! (I mean, it’s not enough that we live together, eat every meal together, sleep together and work together.)

I did find it a little irritating that he could just bee-bop into my 4 mile run on a Saturday morning and keep up with no problem. I had been training for weeks and here he was pushing my pace and wearing me out. Men! They always have to be so competitive. The difference was however, that after those runs, he was struggling to walk for a couple of weeks and I could run again the next day.

So when I was relegated to the exercise bike for a few weeks at the beginning of the summer, I suggested to Rick that he start out slowly and build up his miles at a comfortable, reasonable pace. Then when I had recuperated, we might be able to run together consistently.

Now that I’m back to running and we are running together, I’m wondering if this was such a great idea after all.

I’m the type of runner who likes to get up first thing in the morning, throw on the clothes that are laying on the floor right beside my bed, brush my teeth and head out the door before I can rethink the fact that I’m about to be a miserable, sweaty, achy mess for the next 40 minutes.

Rick, on the other hand, seems to relish in the prelude to misery. I pace around for a half an hour waiting on him to warm up on the exercise bike, stretch, take the dog out, start the coffee, and stretch some more. (I’ve always considered my warm-up the first half mile of my run… and as for stretching… I save that for afterwards…sometimes… when I remember to do it.)

Now, to make matters worse, Rick has to take time to calibrate his new toy, a fancy running watch with all the bells and whistles. … and beeps.

I should have known that his analytical techno-geek nature was going to play a part in our training. We now know AT ALL TIMES how far we have gone, how fast we are going, and what his heart-rate is. For all the beeping that’s going on next to me, I think it also probably tells us the elevation gain, the weather and what’s on TV tonight.

Maybe when we run the half at the Columbus Marathon on October 18, I’ll be able to get lost in the crowd. Or maybe, all his prodding and pushing will help me improve my time. Either way, I think I will carry the scissors just in case.

Blog addendum: After I posted this blog, I got an email from my techy husband. He has put our running log on a shared spreadsheet in Google docs. What a geek!

Coincidentally, I also received the Capital City Half Marathon/Commit to Be Fit 5K newsletter. If you register this week for the May 1, 2010 event, you will save $30 off the entry fee for the half marathon OR $20 off your entry fee for the 5K. http://www.capitalcityhalfmarathon.com/index.shtml

It’s also not too late to register for the Columbus Marathon or half or 5K on October 18. http://www.columbusmarathon.com/

But, I think the race that Rick and I are really going to enjoy the most is the Oktoberfest Vier Meiler. Every runner will receive a technical shirt, a finisher’s medal and some world famous Schmidt’s Sausages, cold beer, and a creme puff! http://m3ssports.com/events/the-oktoberfest-vier-meiler-92509

It was Wednesday night and I caved on one of my steadfast rules: NO SLEEPOVERS during the week! No, not even during the summer.

But last night, I relented and let Susan spend the night at a friend’s house and let Caryn have a friend over to our house.

Why? Because I succumbed to peer pressure. It seems that other parents don’t seem to follow this very basic rule that makes perfect sense to me.

What is up with that? I’m sure that they also have jobs, other children, doctor’s appointments, sports practices, etc. to attend to… but somehow weeknight sleepovers are acceptable in everyone’s house but mine.

Other parents must just have a higher tolerance for late night pillow fights and sleep-deprived children. As for me, jumping up on a Thursday morning to entertain, feed and clean up after house full of cranky kids is more effort than I wish to expend.

Oh wait! I do that every morning!

The difference is that I can give my own kids a list of chores, send them to their rooms, take their phones away and threaten them with bodily harm. (I try to reel in my tyrannical side when there are non-family members present.)

My reluctance to accept weekday sleepovers might be a remnant of my farm girl days. On the farm, we had to get up by seven (even during the summer…even as a kid) and start our work for the day. Friends didn’t really WANT to spend the night with me. And they certainly didn’t want to wake up and head out to the pig barns. (No wonder I didn’t have very many friends!)

The kids don’t understand that I still have to go to work and I still have to make drop off/pick up arrangements and I don’t get to sleep after everyone goes home.

They also don’t understand that a sleepover should involve at least a couple hours of actual SLEEP. It is called a SLEEPover after all. And, even if they manage to be quiet and not wake the rest of the house, they are absolute ogres the next day. The day after an all-night gab/text/prank call/dance-in-underwear/makeover fest is a nightmare for every other member of the household. The ever-present sibling bickering becomes all-out warfare. They can’t possibly be expected to DO anything! And their exhaustion is somehow YOUR fault!

So, come on moms of the world – LET’S UNITE! Let’s support each other in this campaign for weekend –only sleepovers and stop the guilt trips right here and right now! Unless, of course, I can send my kids to YOUR house…

A year ago this week, Rick and I spent our honeymoon hiking 55 miles in Colorado. This year, having just returned from our wild west road trip, we went for the antithesis of that vacation to celebrate our first anniversary.

Nothing like a weekend in New York City to showcase the vast cultural and geographic differences we have in our country!

Majestic mountain views were replaced with neon lights and towering skyscrapers. The aroma of pine needles was replaced with an attack on the olfactory system of more odors – good and bad – than I can begin to place. The crisp mountain air was replaced with stifling humidity and heat that seemed to radiate off the asphalt. And the quiet solitude of a mountain cabin was replaced with buzz of a boisterous city.

Bright lights…noise… bustling crowds… a far cry from the Rocky Mountains. And I loved every minute of it!

Rick and I are not the type to just pick up and fly to New York City. I wouldn’t classify myself as a country mouse that just got off my tractor, but I’m not exactly a jetsetter and I had never had the opportunity to go to the Big Apple. Too many soccer practices, football games and class parties to attend, I suppose.

Although I am still a little country girl at heart, I refused to accept that I wouldn’t be able to find my way around in the biggest city in America. So I armed myself with two tourist guidebooks and four different maps, including one of the subway system. (After all, NavGirl was not along for this trip.) I pored through them on the short flight there and had a general agenda planned by the time we landed at LaGuardia.

I was determined to jam as many of the sights and sounds of New York as I possibly could into the 54 hours that we were there. We went to all of the touristy spots because you HAVE to. It’s New York. You have to see Times Square and the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center site and the Brooklyn Bridge.

It’s so hard to not look like a tourist when you’re a tourist. So I decided to embrace the fact that I AM a tourist… no denying it. Rick toted his giant Canon camera in plain sight and I had my head buried in one of my four maps about half of the time.

Of course, that attracted a lot of the street peddlers. “Hey, do you want to see a comedy show?” “Here’s the best way to see the city.” “Come see the stars at Madame Tussaud’s wax museum.” (The guy with the line “Hey, man, you like hip hop?” did not approach us. I guess we are starting to look our age.) It’s all a part of the ambience of the city… that and lots of honking horns.

We visited the Museum of Modern Art on Friday evening. We wondered why the line was all the way around the block until we discovered that they have free admission on Friday nights!

And, of course, we attended a Broadway show. That was our splurge: incredible tickets to see “Wicked.” There are some bargains to be had in this department, but we went for the WOW factor for our first “on” Broadway experience. And wowed we were… seventh row… center. The show is breathtaking! (It’s going to be here in Columbus next summer as an extra in the Broadway Across America series. Get tickets!)

When Rick and I go anywhere, we try to find something to do that is a little less touristy and a little more “locally.” Although tourists typically visit Central Park, I’m guessing that most tourists don’t run the entire Central Park 6.1 mile outer loop. So that’s what Rick and I did on Saturday morning. We felt like we were getting a glimpse of the real New York City, sweating it out with the stockbrokers and aspiring actors.

And, guess what I discovered? Although the sights and sounds and smells are different, the people are very much the same. A harried waitress in Omaha is just as impatient as one in New York. A mother in Manhattan is just as delighted when you comment on her cute baby as a mother in Denver. People across the country say please and thank you and excuse me. And for such a diverse and scattered population, we all have a lot more similarities than differences.

I wonder if people are different in Hawaii. Maybe I should do some research next year.

This morning at 4:30 am, I found myself on the roof of my house wondering what on earth I had gotten myself into this time.
Why would anyone in their right mind (other than mothers of infants – and their short-term sanity can often be questioned) be up at such a ridiculous hour in the first place?

And, more importantly, why would said bleary-eyed person think that it would be a good idea to clamber up two ladders to get to the only flat surface on her Victorian home’s roof.

Why else?

Because Jack wanted to see the meteor showers. (You knew it had to have something to do with a less than sane mother.)

Rick opened this can of worms a month ago when Susan insisted that she was dying to see the International Space Station fly overhead. Rick, being the nurturing father that he is (and more importantly, hoping that he could inspire her to be interested in something other than hair and makeup), readily agreed to get up with her at the designated ungodly hour to watch the tiny little light fly across the sky. He even downloaded the app onto his iPhone so they could precisely track the satellite’s movement.

So when Jack started the same mantra for seeing the meteor showers, I thought we should probably give him the same attention. It was actually, in fact, Susan’s idea. She’s the one that told Jack about the meteor shower in the first place and promised to get him up to watch it with him.

But, as teenagers do, she made other plans to spend the night at a friend’s house, forgetting her promise and leaving Jack to her dad and me. He started to sob the moment that I told him Susan wasn’t going to be home.

Who knew Jack was so passionate about astronomy?

So there the three of us were… in the wee hours of the morning… lying on a quilt on top of the roof wishing on shooting stars. Thank goodness we saw a few.

And what did I wish for? To be back in bed.

Why did it not occur to me that Jack’s football practice pants from last year would not fit him this year?

Of course, I am well aware that he has gained 15 pounds in the last 12 months. And, of course I KNEW that every pair of jeans from last school year is now quite snug. After all, I was just at Kohl’s three weeks ago finding some larger shorts for the second time this summer.

So on the first day of football practice with pads, it really should not have come as a surprise to me when Gracie and I had to get on either side of Jack to help him pull up his pants.

“One, two, three… PULL.”

“OWWWWWW.”

I was so proud of myself at the end of football season last October for having stored all of the equipment together. I was even prouder of myself two weeks ago for having remembered where I put it!

Sunday night, I went through the entire checklist in my head:
Helmet – check.
Chin guard – check.
Shoulder pads – check.
Special cup-holding underwear (i.e., girdle… who knew boys wear girdles?) – check.
Special cup – check.
Pants – check.
Pants pads – check.
Jersey – check.
Cleats – check.

But there I was Monday evening, watching Jack try to run, hit, block, pass and carry a football – all the while fumbling to keep his pants up.

So much for my mom-of-the-year points!

It’s just a silly little microcosm of my existence and it was really no big deal. I ran right over to Play-It-Again Sports and bought him a new pair that night. But I was bummed that I had dropped the ball (or squished them, as the case may be).

Sorry, Jack.

Thank God, swim team is over for the season! If I have to hear Caryn whine one more day, I think she might not live to see fourteen.

There are a multitude of reasons that she hates it so: She has to get up as early in the summer as she does during school. The water is really cold first thing in the morning. And, of course, there are those ridiculous one piece swimsuit tan lines to deal with.

The one gripe that she has that I actually can empathize with is that she really stinks at it and it’s embarrassing.

It’s hard to dive into the frigid water and swim laps every morning from 7:45 to 9:30 knowing that on Wednesday evening at the meet, you will finish dead last in every single event that your coach has graced (the other swimmers) with your presence.

Rest assured… Jack and Grace stink too! But Caryn is our “ultra-over-the-top-gotta-be-first-in-everything” child. (I used to think that she would actually come to blows with whoever challenged her for the first pancake off the griddle on Saturday mornings.) So the coming in last every single time really grates on every fiber of her being.

It’s not that our kids are terrible athletes. It’s not that they are out of shape. And it’s not that they don’t try.

The reason that they are not competitive is that they only swim during the summer. The kids that are finishing anywhere other than last are typically those who swim year round. Anyone who swims just for the summer rec league almost looks silly in comparison.

It’s kind of sad because it seems that all of youth sports are like that now.

A child can’t play football in the fall, basketball in the winter, soccer in the spring and baseball in the summer. If he truly wants to compete, he has to specialize!

Take girls soccer, for example. If she wants to be competitive, your daughter absolutely must play in multiple traveling select soccer leagues in the spring and fall, do indoor soccer through the winter and attend four special soccer camps in the summer. There is absolutely no room for anything but soccer soccer soccer (insert whatever sport you want there).

It starts innocently enough. You sign up your daughter for tiny tots soccer. She plays a couple seasons and some coach or parent notices that she is pretty good.

The coaches and the other parents (who have already bought into the whole thing) play on your parental pride… and if that doesn’t work… your parental guilt. And suddenly, you’ve signed on to a season of select play that includes thousands of dollars worth of fees… a time investment of 4 – 6 evenings a week and weekend trips that don’t come cheap.

Of course, your daughter will get really good at soccer. And you get sucked into it.

That’s all she ever does. That’s all the coaches will allow her to do. And, frankly, that’s all you ever do. If you have more than one child… well, I’m not sure what you do.

But, what if you were wrong? What if… when your son was three… you decided that gymnastics was his forte? You immersed him in all things gymnastics. You paid the exorbitant costs of special coaches and special equipment and special clothing. You took him across the county … and then the state… and then the country.

And at 12, he pulls you aside and very delicately informs you that he has secretly been playing football during recess with his buddies at school and he has decided that he wants to give football a try.

At 14, he decides that lying at the bottom of a pile of four 200 pound boys is not for him and lacrosse is now the sport for him.

You buy the stuff and devote yourself to that, but at 17, he abruptly quits the lacrosse team and tells you that he hated sports from the time that he was teeny tiny… but what he really loves is cooking and he is going to be a chef.

The bottom line is that we, as parents, can’t really identify our children’s strong suits at 3 or 5 or 10 or even at 14 years old. We push our wishes on them and live vicariously through them… often unconsciously. And today’s suburban American society makes it an imperative by insisting that the kids choose one sport, or choose one extra curricular activity.

The result is a society of children that feel inferior in every sport except one. And, in my kids’ case, in EVERY athletic capacity, since we still attempt the old-fashioned-do-it-all approach.

Hopefully, our kids will grow up with an appreciation for a variety of sports and will be able to enjoy them as adults because they have actually participated in many of them.

Or, possibly, they’ll hate them all equally…

I’ve discovered the key to getting over post-vacation blues is to make the vacation so long and exhausting that everyone is READY to get back to the normalcy of work and mundane chores like laundry.

Nerves were a little frayed by the time we pulled back into our driveway last Saturday night, 14 days, 4136 miles later. The kids were ready to sleep in past 6 am and I was ready to be out of earshot of the bickering and birdiness that had become the norm throughout the last 4 days of the trip. I think Rick was ready to go back to work and be away from me complaining about the bickering and the birdiness.

But, there is good news. We saw a lot of America that we had never seen before and I hope that the kids will remember the sites and the fun times… and not the time that I took the girls’ phones and spanked Jack. I think we made it without any permanent damage to the familial relationships. No flat tires, no fender benders, no one got sick, no one expired on the side of a mountain and no one got left behind in some little known town like WaKeeney, Kansas.

So here are a few random vacation notes and observations:

O-H-I-O looks really cool in the Badlands.

When you travel with three teenage girls, the speed at which a perfectly tidy hotel room looks like someone threw a hand grenade into a Hollister store is amazing!

As yummy as it might sound, eating out three meals a day becomes yucky after the second day…even to kids.

Eating out three meals a day also becomes unbelievably expensive after the second day.

When hiking, it is important to hold on very tightly to your new $150 trekking poles when approaching waterfalls.

When the girls listen to their iPods and sing loudly (and badly) to music that no one else can hear, that is perfectly acceptable.

When Jack does it, it is definitely NOT.

Do not trust that your 15-year-old will act 15 when she is around your 10-year-old for extended periods of time. They all tend to revert to the lowest common denominator.

The hotel pool will ALWAYS be one of the most memorable parts of vacation.

When you do laundry while on vacation, somehow you STILL manage to end up with four unmatched socks.

The rain jackets they give you to go whitewater rafting don’t smell nearly so bad when you are freezing after three hours on a boat.

The stretch of I-70 from the east side of Denver to the west side of Kansas City is the most boring length of highway imaginable to mankind.

Teleporting is a product of science fiction novels only and doesn’t really work. We all tried (including me)… on above-mentioned stretch.

Subways (the restaurant) smell the same in every state… even when they are attached to gas stations.

There are no fast food restaurants that you have ever heard of in all of South Dakota… except for Subway.

Vacation henna tattoos are a must for all teenage girls.

Roadside rest stop bathrooms are cleaner than those in restaurants and gas stations along the highway. And in Kansas, they have a really cool one where you just stick your hands in and it gives you soap, water, and drying without touching anything!

The billboards for Americana that you see on a road trip are a little embarrassing to the American culture: “five legged steer,” “petrified gardens,” “500 pound prairie dog,” “250 loose slots…you’re bound to get lucky.”

It costs almost as much to board your dog for two weeks as it does to board you for two weeks.

When you offer to take a picture for someone else, take note of how many cameras they have in their hands. (See Susan’s wrist in the picture…I think there were 8 cameras.)

By the end of a vacation road trip with kids, your husband begins to look and sound eerily like Chevy Chase.

The water resistant luggage carrier on your car roof is not actually water proof. Your clothes are going to get wet because it always rains at least one time in an 8 hour drive.

Someone inevitably forgets to flush the toilet before you leave for vacation. A lovely surprise when you walk back in the door two weeks later. Ewwww!

It’s always good to be back home!

Hopefully, by next summer, I will have forgotten everything that went wrong and I will plan the great American adventure (part II)… off to the Grand Canyon. (I might even try the whole camping thing…See, I’m already beginning to forget.)

Rick and I love to hike. The children do not share our passion.

So, for the last five days/six nights of our trip when we were hiking at Rocky Mountain National Park, the kids were less than enthused.

Don’t misunderstand. We weren’t exactly roughing it. We actually only hiked two days. And our lodging was a three bedroom, 2 ½ bath cottage with cathedral ceilings, stone fireplace, three floors, fully equipped kitchen, decks off of each bedroom, satellite HDTV, wireless internet, and free long distance.

The view from our deck. Mount Chiquita is the second mountain from the right.

The only thing that could possibly be construed as primitive was that there was no cell phone service. So, although the girls could talk on the house phone for every available moment that we were in the house, they could not maintain their 250 text per hour minimum rate.

Oh, and Gracie was disappointed the night that we grilled brats for supper and failed to have Grey Poupon for them.

The hiking portion of the trip would have gone much more smoothly if the weather had cooperated. When Rick and I visited the Rockies the last two summers, we were delighted with beautiful blue skies, warm mornings and only occasional afternoon thunderstorms. Unfortunately, this year the whole week was abnormally wet and cloudy. I should have known what was coming on the first night as we drove the winding roads through the mountains to our cottage in a torrential rainstorm.

As I wrote in yesterday’s blog, the first day’s hike met with a wet end – due to the weather, not Jack. Of course, I hadn’t splurged on proper rain gear for the kids so they were drenched and cold in their hoodies and non-waterproof sweats.

But the only thing that you can be sure of in the mountains is that the weather will be unpredictable and your best bet is to hike early. So Rick and I decided that evening that – given the dismal forecast – our best bet was to try to beat the crummy weather each day. According to weather.com, the rain would begin at 10 am. That meant we needed to leave the house no later than 6 am.

I tried NOT to envision the conversations that took place amongst the kids after we told them what time they needed to be ready. Surprisingly, they managed to keep their moaning to a dull roar that was mostly out of our earshot.

5 am rolled around quickly, but everyone was out the door by 6:30 with lunches, snacks, water and extra clothes (including four newly purchased rain ponchos) packed in their backpacks. The girls even had enough time to put on some makeup. “Well, there ARE going to pictures, you know!”

At the trailhead…still looking fresh!

For our first hike, we chose a 6-mile round trip, 2000+ elevation gain, 13,069 foot summit hike to the top of Mount Chiquita. (If you have only hiked/walked in the central Ohio area, let me just tell you that six miles here in NO WAY equates to six miles in the Rockies. This is a seriously strenuous hike even for adults that are in reasonably good shape… especially flatlanders like us.)

Call us masochists, overly-ambitious, cruel parents or just plain crazy. I guess we just wanted for them to “bag a summit” and to see the top of a mountain.

I think that all four of the kids truly thought that we had sent them on a death march. It didn’t help that the trail is less traveled and we only saw about six other hiking parties.

I knew that Jack was worried. He is an open book. But, it wasn’t until later that Susan admitted that she was genuinely concerned about “making it.” The only thing that strengthened her faith was that she knew Rick and I had done that hike before. “Otherwise, I thought we were hiking out into the woods to die.”

Little by little, we trudged up the mountain. The girls were faster because Rick and I stayed behind with Jack. They would rush on ahead, then stop and rest until we caught up with them. Then they went on ahead again.

The first mile of the hike is the worst… or so I told the kids… over and over again, hoping that would keep them going.

Taking the road less travelled…looking a little tired already!

We skirted the measly 12,454 foot Mount Chapin and arrived at the saddle within 3 hours. The kids were happy to rest for a few minutes and play in the snow.

Caryn (hearts) U!

Looking pretty good at 3 hours in

Then on up the talus, we headed. We followed the cairns, never tiring of our bad puns about following Caryn.

“It’s all about the climb,” I told the kids, thinking that the Miley reference would amuse them.

It didn’t.

And FINALLY, we made it! Not without some tears and one skinned up knee… but WE MADE IT!

And there is no better feeling than having hiked to the top of a mountain. Even the girls had to admit that it was pretty spectacular. And Jack was just happy that he lived to see the top.

Gosh I hope they publish this picture in the Dispatch! We carried the darn newspaper for 4,136 miles!

The girls said that their lunch of cold cut sandwiches, pretzels and grapes was the best they had ever tasted. They found some comfy rocks to nap on and Jack enjoyed watching the frolicking yellow-bellied marmots. (We didn’t tell him what they were actually doing.)

Susan’s story-telling on the way back down the mountain kept everyone’s minds off of their aches and pains and other biological needs.

Back down the mountain

I can only hope that the agony of it all will subside and the kids will remember the sheer exhilaration of having hiked to the top of a mountain.

Who am I kidding? Gracie has already told me that her favorite part of vacation was shopping in Boulder and Jack’s was the hundred times we ate in restaurants.

That’s ok. We’ll try again next year. Maybe I’ll put the kids on a training regimen in the weeks leading up to vacation. That should create some hallmark moments.