Our blog has moved!

Since Blogger uses Picasa web albums for all of the pictures on our blog and they are only letting me have 1G of picture storage, we have moved over to hosting our blog on Rich's server and using Wordpress. If you'd like to stay caught up on our family you can now find our blog at: http://blog.armarlatt.com/

Rich's Birthday Present at NW Trek Part 1- Zip Lining

About a month before Rich's 30th birthday, I saw a commercial on TV advertising the new zip line course that NW Trek had added. I was beyond excited because I knew it would be the PERFECT gift for Rich's birthday. We tend to like to do fun things rather than buy stuff for birthday gifts and this was right up his alley. It was outdoors and it was adventurous. He had to wait a month past his birthday before he got to go but it was well worth the wait! He said it was the best birthday gift he's ever gotten and he has no idea how he'll ever be able to top it. I guess I have my work cut out for me now!

We took Bob & Denise with us so that they could take pictures and watch the boys while Rich and I did the zip line course. I gave Skyler my camera to take pictures with so these first few pictures are ones that Skyler took...

Grandma & Grandpa

Papa resting on a rock

Me on the practice course

Rich & I on the practice course

A Skyler self portrait

Another self portrait :-)

All of the rest of these are pictures from Denise's camera...

Skyler practicing taking pictures with my camera (he's also holding onto my watch for me)

Skyler was far too interested in my camera to look up for a picture

Getting our harnesses on

 Getting everything all tightened up

 Such cute boys!

 Skyler & Papa

 Climbing up onto the practice course

Going across my first obstacle, so far, so good!

 This rope obstacle was so fun!!

 Apparently, I wasn't paying close enough attention during the instructions because I couldn't get my zip-line carabiner/trolley thing unhooked from my harness.

 My first zip-line experience ever!

 Rich's first zip-line of the day

 Excited to get on the real course

 Dylan & Papa

 Climbing my first rock wall ever

 Already having fun!

 Doing pretty good!

Made it to the top!

 Success!

 Rich's turn to tackle the rock wall

 Watching Rich climb up the wall

Going on the first big zip-line

 Rich clipping himself in

 Getting ready to go on his first big zip-line

 He made it across

 Going across the first obstacle

 Getting myself clipped in to go across my second obstacle

 Skyler borrowed Papa's binoculars so that he could watch us up in the trees

 Rich on the second obstacle

 Just hanging out in the trees

 Rich on another zip-line

 Getting ready to go across the net obstacle

 We were pretty high up in the trees!

 This net was actually pretty fun to go across

Still having fun!

Rich's turn across the net

 We keep getting higher and higher in the trees

 Going on another zip-line

 Those swinging bars were HARD to get across!

 But the swinging bars were nothing compared to this crazy cargo net!

 This thing was a beast!

 And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, there was a gap in the net. It was pretty crazy!

 Rich's turn to tackle the BEASTLY cargo net

 I FINALLY made it across!

 Rich made it across, too!

 These planks were really high up and they were spaced farther apart than they look...or maybe it just seemed that way to me?

 Okay, that's a pretty big gap in between those boards, right?

 And I wasn't kidding about it being really high up! I took my sweet time getting across this.

 But Rich cruised over it like it was nothing!

 Next came the tight wire

 Still really high up in the sky, going over the tight wire

 I'm pretty sure that Dylan thought we were crazy!

 That swinging bridge was the last obstacle

 Rich going over the swinging bridge

 Time for the last 2 zip-lines

 Last 2 zip-lines for Rich

We survived and it was AWESOME!!

They have a course that's even harder than the one we did and Rich is already making plans to go do the Extreme Course. I, however, am happy that I survived the one we did and don't think I'll brave the extreme course. Also, I'm glad that prior to this I had been working out a ton and was in semi-decent shape. I don't know if I would have made it through otherwise :-) But it really was a fun experience and I'm glad that Rich had a fun birthday!