This is My Moose!

Spent a 3rd summer in Wild and Wonderful West Virginia. Dwelt in the wilderness with my peeps, made some new friends that already occupy a small chunk of my heart, laughed, cried, made over 300 bagged lunches, led 26 trips (10 of them to paddleboard at Lake Buffalo), gave or recevied approximately 1 million hugs, brought all of the lab manual for CV and Renal anatomy into ADA compliance, did not let a single louse into camp, programmed cabin activity, doled out snack, made many new adventure dreams come true, sent 13 kids on a 10 paddle board trip, finally led a bike trip I did not even get to bike on, got a new moose, and still haven't been to fishing.

Random CHM Views

We brought a lot of plants to camp this summer. Wes drove the id4 with the dog and most of our stuff, I drove the Prius with the plant babies.

Zelda maybe kinda sorta made friends with Maple and Oreo? I hadn't really heard the pigs make much noise, but I swear they were barking (playfully) at Zelda?

Zara toiling away in the garden. Such cute boots!

Chalet's pimpin' porch, and both Zs with their tongues out.

Chilling on the porch.... maybe next year's upgrade is screens? Bugs were something fierce this summer.

Me and Wesley on a little wander along the part of the Greenbrier Trail that runs through Marlinton (at this point it's also merged with the Alleghany Trail).

Requisite family (minus AJ and Zel) selfie at one of the many WV swings - this one's at (the real) Blackwater Falls.

The REAL Blackwater Falls

Return to Reed's Creek

This is actually the 3rd year I've been to Reed's Creek, but I didn't climb the first one since I was just there for moral and water and pepper support. And also fun. But we went back again this summer, and everyone at least attempted both climbs - Charlie's unlocked some new lead climbing skills since last summer, and that was cool to see. There was some rain that mostly missed us, and the weather was cooperative otherwise.

And here are Nick and Zara playing a hilarious game of "quick draw" - literally. There was some debate on gates out vs in, and a draw or 2 may have been flung over the side of the crag (don't worry, we retrieved it!)... and now I know what we're doing while waiting to climb next time!

Zara's 21st Birthday Observed

Much like when I turned 21 in the 90s, there is very little photographic evidence of the lovely evening we spent playing pool, eating snackies, drinking drinkies and singing karaoke to celebrate Zara (somewhat belatedly) turning 21. But the few pics I did manage to remember to snap still tell a story, so I present them anyway.

Zara goes to Iceland

Galavanting in Gaudineer

We capped off our first day off this summer with a little family hike to the Gaudineer Old Growth Trail. We're sending Z off solo (well, with N and also 6 campers) to Iceland since A's knee is still not back to brutal death march hiking form. I guess we would have done this hike either way though, since if A had gone too we'd be saying goodbye to 2 family members for 2 weeks instead of just 1. Maybe it would have been a longer hike? But in any case, we enjoyed our little side quest. Welcome back to wild and wonderful West Virginia.

Licensed! (AJC edition)

This is Amity. They are a licensed driver. OMG?!

Extra hilarity - they passed their road test/last day of driver's ed on April 19th, but Virginia Law says you have to hold your permit for 9 months before you get your license... and since they passed their permit test on August 7th, they became streel legal for realz on May 7th.

Turns out... we have a pizza oven

We got a new stove/oven. It's induction, which has been kinda cool but also has a learning curve. Worse part was definitely replacing some of our older, beloved pots and pans. But the oven has convection settings, and also a dehydrator (maybe this will finally solve our fig problem??) but most excitingly it goes to 750F and has PIZZA MODE! Comes with it's own stone and shield and is awesome. It makes some really good pizza. We've been eating a lot of pizza. Mmm... pizza.