One warm Sunday after church we headed up to Squaw Peak for dinner. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows for s'mores.
The kids had a great time, exploring around, whittling sticks and Paisley caught quite the collection of tiny caterpillars that were everywhere. Jon was deep in concentration carving our names in a big stick he'd found (soooo romantic) as well as Eli, so Adren, Paisley, Zeke and I ventured off for a walk and more exploring.
After a little bit we came to a very deep, empty river bed. Adren was dying to go down in it, and somehow Zeke was already halfway down, so we all went down. I about stumbled on my face, it was so steep and full of rocks, I wondered how we'd make it back up. We started walking/stumbling down the narrow bed which was full of large rocks and lots of growth so I'd have to lift the babies over it or we'd crawl under. We were getting down quite a ways and I'd kept looking for a spot we could crawl up and get out of there, but it was so steep and so many rocks, I just couldn't find a spot. Finally I could see the bed was getting completely filled in with trees and branches and we really could not go further with little Zeke stumbling along~ and Paisley in her glitter heels.
We had started making such slow progress and Zeke was starting to demand I hold him, I could see it would be very hard to turn back, and the spot we came down I remembered thinking looking back up there was no way Zeke and Paisley were getting back up that way, but I figured we'd find something. I told Adren he'd need to help me, and just try climbing up the sides. I lifted Paisley up and just sort of stuck her to the wall and told her to grab on to something. Adren got to the top but started quite the rock slide, one nicking poor Zeke in the ankle. Adren was telling me he'd go find dad, but I wasn't sure where we were, we had walked quite a bit, and just couldn't risk him getting lost somewhere in the mountains, it would be dark soon. I tried another spot with less rocks and told Adren to find a spot where he could get a good foot-hold and hold on to something and help grab on to Paisley when she got close enough. He was good to try different positions and test how stable he was before he told me he was ready and held his arm out. I had Zeke in one arm, Paisley up ahead of me, as I kept a hand on her bottom and kept hoisting her up. I kept telling her she could do it, hold on to the weeds tight. She was so sweet, replying, "Ok, mamma. I can do it." She finally got close enough to Adren's outstretched hand and I heard him saying, "Don't worry, I won't let go". She was so happy when she got to the top. I somehow summoned the strength of a mamma bear, hoisting Zeke up with one arm and hanging from some tree roots was able to hand him up close enough to Adren. Little Zeke was scrambling up that slope with all his might, grunting and responding to me and Adren he'd say, "Oh tay". Somehow we all made it to the top and when I looked down where we'd come I just couldn't believe these little babies had done it! On the walk back Zeke kept making relieved sighing sounds and saying, "We did it!" Quite the adventure.
