June 18, 2025
It was a typical morning for us– breakfast, homeschool, laundry. Kyle was on duty for the curriculum part of homeschool so I took off on another coastal walk.
This time, I headed north for 30 minutes along the rocky coast. The coast is pretty jagged which makes it impossible to see where you are headed. It also creates lots of tiny coves and private beach spots. For 10 minutes, a woman was trailing behind me but then suddenly stopped. Once I had turned around, I found her set up in one of the private coves for the day. I kept walking back toward the house but did feel a little jealous of the day she had ahead of her.
Our big plan for the day was to head to a ropes course/ adventure center. The website showed that they had quad bikes specifically for kids aged 5-10 years old, too. We prepped Lenny that he was going to be 5 for the day as driving his own quad bike is a dream of his. But first, the kids got geared up with harnesses, gloves and helmets. Lenny had easy open carabiners as clips since his courses would be closer to the ground while Ollie had more elaborate clips that required special magnets along the course to open and close. Ollie’s clips were connected to one another and only one could be open at a time– ensuring that he was always connected to a safety wire. Unlike other ropes courses or zip lines we’ve done, there weren’t any guides along the courses and you were on your own to move through them.
Lenny was up first and we all watched him as he made his way through his first White course. The carabiners gave him a bit of trouble in the beginning, his tiny hands getting used to repeatedly squeezing and clipping them onto safety cables. But he was hooked– the ropes courses were like more elaborate and dangerous playgrounds for him to explore. He repeatedly said throughout the day, “Thank you SO much for bringing me here!” After Len finished his first course, we then headed to a Green course for Ollie. His was much higher off the ground, 10- 20 feet at spots, and he was totally on his own with his clips. Kyle and Len stayed to cheer him on through the cargo net but soon took off so Len could get in some more action while Ollie worked his way through this much longer and more intense course.
Ollie steadily made his way through obstacles in the beginning, tripping up with his clips at first but getting the hang of it faster than expected. I walked along next to him, craning my neck to look up and coach him through the more complicated tasks and giving him encouragement. He fell off a slack line at one point and had to get himself back to the beginning of the obstacle by pulling himself along the line to get to the ledge to stand up and try again. He stayed calm and once back standing on the ledge told me, “A person like me doesn’t quit.”
This non-quitting spirit came in handy at one of the next obstacles. He had to climb aboard a circular disc at the bottom of a rope and propel himself along a wire to the next ledge. Kind of like a zip line, but sitting on a swing instead. This one was ~15 feet in the air so I was unable to help him besides providing coaching from the ground. On his first attempt across this obstacle, a small string got tangled in his setup and provided enough friction to prevent him from swinging himself all the way across and instead he got stuck in the middle. Thankfully he was still sitting on the disc and I was able to pull him back to the beginning ledge with the small rope attached to disc that dangled all the way to the ground. On his next attempt, though, he fell off the disc entirely and was dangling, stuck, in the middle of the obstacle and he could just barely reach a rope that would pull him back to the beginning. I looked for a long enough stick to offer him to then walk him back, but couldn’t find one long enough. Inch by inch, Ollie pulled himself back to the first ledge but was fully in tears at this point. He took some deep breaths, made sure he wasn’t tangled and took off once more making it 90% of the way across. I scrambled up to the second ledge by climbing a few rocks and tree branches and pulled myself up then held out the longest stick I could find to pull him to the second ledge. It worked! We were both pretty relieved at this point.
Given all of this excitement, it took Ollie close to 90 minutes to finish his course, so Len and Kyle made their way back to us to watch him finish up. There were a few mini zip lines along the way, but Ollie’s course ended with a ~200ft zip line from the trees to the ground. He attached his clips and a cable trolley hooked to his belt and sent himself along the zip line. Lenny seemed a little jealous but held it together and instead told Ollie good job multiple times. Len had plenty of excitement of his own along his courses including jumping along Pokemon balls and riding in a little car and skateboard that were connected to wires above the ground.
We ate lunch at a small restaurant onsite with the boys clamoring to get back out onto the courses most of the time. We went out again in the afternoon and both boys got to work through new obstacles. Len’s favorite was sitting within a wooden tube that glided across wires and Ollie loved doing a few more zip lines higher in the air. When they each finished their courses, Ollie begged to do another course while Len begged to ride the quad bikes. Ollie was obviously quite tired and complaining his hands were fatigued so I convinced him to end his adventuring on a high note, hand in his harness and head to the quad bike course with Lenny.
Ollie and Len were (thankfully) the only kids at the quad bike course when we went. They were rearing to go and arguing over who would get the green bike. Despite his confidence, Lenny has actually never steered his own bike before so it took a few passes for him to get used to it. He crashed into a fence and the hay bales more than a few times. The boys were desperate to race one another but Kyle and I pleaded with them to instead just drive around the course to prevent crashes. They of course did crash into one another at one point and it seemed intentional from my vantage, but Len insisted it wasn’t.
After quad bikes, we changed into bathing suits into the parking lot and trekked down a hill to the river behind the ropes course. The water was crystal clear and we were all hot and dusty from spending ~5 hours at the ropes course. The boys had fun walking gingerly along the rocks and “claiming” good sunning rocks as their own. Kyle and I wished we had a cooler with us like the other people hanging out at the river. Without water shoes, walking along the rocks was quite slippery and probably dangerous for the boys so we stayed for just a bit before heading back to the car. Len took a tumble when climbing back up the embankment and emerged into the parking lot with dirt clinging to his damp body. He rode home naked wrapped in a towel. We stopped briefly at the market on the way home to grab garbage bags and fresh fish for dinner with naked Lenny and Kyle waiting in the car.
Back at the house, the boys swam in the pool with Kyle while I prepped dinner. Bri and Amanda hung out in the kitchen with me for a bit sharing about their chill beach day. Bri was soon recruited to play with the boys in the pool while Amanda called her parents at home. Dinner was leftover pesto pasta for the boys, fish with leek compote for the adults (tofu for Amanda), tomato salad with cucumbers and onions, and garlic bread for all. At the market, Ollie convinced me to get cookie dough ice cream so that was dessert for him and Lenny. Both boys proclaimed it, “Best dessert ever!!”
Kyle and I were somehow as beat as the boys and went to sleep shortly after the kids. Bri and Amanda hit the town and she texted me at 1am confirming they made it home safely.
