Welcome to U16

AJ's team won their bracket at the Blue Ridge Cup!

It's a good thing there are other parents who take good soccer pics, because I simply cannot. Thanks to Jen and Crystal and I believe Heather W for the awesome snaps. Much appreciated!

Return of the Mystery Maze

Z was going to go climbing in the Red (aka Red River Gorge) with their Obie buddy, but that plan fell through which was kinda sad for Z as they love to climb, but was also nice for the rest of us because we got a surprise bonus week of Zara time!

We took the opportunity of said bonus Z time to do some fun Fall things, and that includes going to the corn maze. When the kiddos were younger we'd often do the "big" maze at Liberty Mills, usually at night/by flashlight, but we've since moved on to a new challenge. These days the group seems to prefer the "mystery maze" which is basically 8 acres of mapless madness, designed to challenge the most inherently direction centered peeps. In a previous incarnation we had 5 for the maze, and this time it was just 3 of us so one of our primary strategies (leave one person behind while everyone else fans out and checks for dead ends vs the way through) was less effective since we either had only 2 checking paths or 3 of us would go but the water bottle we left to mark out place wasn't very responsive to our cries of "Marco." It took us 2:20 to finish the maze (about 30 min longer than our last attempt, though also that was different maze?) and we "lost the plot" at least twice. There was a bit of (educated?) guessing involved, but I generaly stand by our maze conquering skills.

First Day of School: 15th Grade (3rd Year at Oberlin)

Ok so actually only one of these pics is a first day of school, but dorm move in and bike acquisition are key moments in college life. Z's back in Tank, in a single this time which they are THRILLED about, and taking 3rd year at Oberlin by storm. They are only on campus for Fall term because they will be spending Spring term in Woods Hole (Cape Cod) and then on a 6 week blue water voyage between St. Croix and Cape Cod researching micro-plastics in the Sargasso Sea, but that's another series of posts. Have a kickin' Fall term, kiddo!

First Day of School: 10th Grade

AJ started 10th grade, and drive themselves (heavily supervised by Wes, of course) to school today to start off their sophomore year of high school. Have a fantastically amazing school year, kiddo!

Have I mentioned the Rocks?

Hanging out at Second Rule, getting ready to climb

A random cave with a bunch of animal bones - something that looked pelvis-y, maybe dog sized, and lots of smaller bones too.

Z and N sizing up Winter Harvest

This was truly unposed, and at the time I didn't even realize Nick and Z were "standing" on Charlie's feet! Wes checking either food hours or weather. Possibly both.

Had a super fun time at Reed's Creek! Everyone climbed the 5.7 Second Rule (Zara led it, Charlie cleaned it) and then a combo of Zara and Nick lead Winter Harvest, which included some extreme MacGyvering of running the stick clip up to Nick who was 50 or so feet in the air, but apparently they've been there, done that and have already perfected this technique and it just seemed awesomely improv'd. Charlie slayed the top rope version, with yours truly belaying, and while Wes would have liked a crack at it, it was getting late and people were getting hungry. We ended up grabbing a smorgasbord of random but real food at the Sheetz in Petersburg, because even on a Saturday nothing is open after 8pm out here. A good day off was had by all.

My sixth favorite thing about camp

or maybe it's my seventh?

Hard to know. But getting to do camp AND hang with fam? One of the best for sure.

Milla comes to visit... again!

Our favorite Finn is back! Milla came to visit before camp this year, got to overlap for 1 trip to Kings Dominion and about 24 hours with Z before they went to be core staff at camp (and get there a week before us). We still had escape room and hiking fun, but we also spent time getting ready for camp by improving the drainage in the yard to prevent basement flooding (spoiler alert - didn't quite fix the problem) and also went to Kings Domnion again (season pass ftw) though i missed both trips because...work. But in just afew days we're all off to CHM so life is GOOD.

Playing in Pittsburgh

Turns out Pittsburgh is pretty much the perfectly placed meet up locale for a long weekend rendezvous with your Michigan BFFs. Gabi and Nick met up with me, AJ and Wes for about 60 hours of mostly non-stop fun. There was some sleeping in there, but also a trip to the science museum (and everyone who isn't me's first laser show!), a day at the (ball)park, some awesome flat backyard astroturf soccer practice, a trip up the funicular, some awesome VRBO-cooked dinners and, of course, ice cream! (not pictured, but definigtely consumed). Thanks to Zara for holding down the homefront with Zelda for the weekend.