Carson went through three different walking sticks — hamming it up a bit when the camera was pointed in his direction:

I really should pick up a book on the local flora, as I have absolutely no idea what this flower is:

While crossing a bridge on the trail, Carson spotted this little guy hanging out half-submerged.

And, being a 10-year-old in possession of both X and Y chromosomes, he plopped down on his stomach to try to grab the frog for a closer inspection (he failed):

Halfway through the hike, Carson was pooped and cold (lying on his stomach on wet ground while plunging his hands into cold water didn’t help!), but, since it was a metro park, we found a shelter for him to hang out in while I completed the hike and then drove back up to retrieve him. At the observation deck towards the end of that last leg of the hike, I came across this guy bedded down:

Following the hike, we stopped for gas, and the gas station had a Dairy Queen, so Carson scored a Peanut Buster Parfait. Following that, we passed a Michael’s, which prompted a stop for some blue powdered dye as an ingredient for the homemade smoke bomb we made the next day. Needless to say, Carson’s memories of the day might not include anything related to trails, hiking sticks, flora, or fauna.

And this:

The week after Julie and the kids returned from spring break, and thinking it was Julie’s last weekend before heading back to work, a hastily-planned “girls’ weekend” up at Lake Erie was planned. That left a neighborhood full of fathers with their offspring. Conveniently, one of the neighborhood dads (who’s wife did not head to the lake, as she was almost 9 months pregnant) received a shipment of 1,000 tree seedlings on Friday afternoon for some property he has north of town.

Combining the opportunity to help a neighbor out, spend some time outdoors, and have the kids entertained by fresh air and sticks, Pat and I spent Saturday afternoon planting ~3/4 of those seedlings.

Alana, Marty, and Pat haul the seedlings back to where they are to be planted (yes, that box holds a thousand little trees):

Taking a break to give the kids a ride. Jack and Alana on the front…

…and Carson and Andrew on the back.

Because they were outside in the woods for more than 12 minutes, Josh and Benton, predictably, built a fire and a makeshift bench:

All geared up:

Up the ropes to the zip line:

And zipping down:

Then, onto the ropes course:

Pre-trip safety instruction with a deep southern hipster:

Loading up (did I mention that they’d dyed the water green for St. Patrick’s Day?):

Heading into the rapids:

And…the action shots:

So, if you race down steep rapids, how on earth do you get back to the headwaters? With a conveyor bridge, of course!

There are a number of activities at the center, so I’m going to break this up into three separate posts. We started off at the rock wall (in the picture above over on the right edge — the light brown, lopsided tower thingy), where Julie and the boys both took multiple turns on multiple difficulty levels.

Carson, Julie, and Benton all on the wall at once:

Carson at the top of the wall:

Benton paused for a photo op en route to the top:

Julie close to the peak of her comfort level:

Overall, Carson gave the experience a thumbs-up:

The gaggle of sibling/cousins/second-cousins held council (short two: one was still at soccer practice, and Benton had gone off and located the basketball hoop) in the backyard trying to decide what to do:

“Red Rover!” someone suggested. “Boys against girls,” (the same) person suggested. While the numbers did not seem to be in the boys’ favor at first blush, Mac is no dummy. He immediately identified the weakest link and went for it:

The game was called after two runs.

As luck would have it, a book that she’d ordered, Fancy Nancy: Ooh La La! It’s Beauty Day, arrived that morning. Gender stereotyping be damned, the Fancy Nancy series of books are pretty entertaining, and Alana has owned and/or checked out many of them. But, this was a new one to her, and she had anticipated it’s arrival ever since ordering it over the weekend. She dove right in, and, the next thing we knew, a good portion of Julie’s day disappeared into time spent at the home spa.

Before starting, Alana made up a list of services to be provided:

The ambiance was enhanced with iPad-piped music:

They started with a footbath (Alana was a recipient of some of the services as well as the provider, as the logistics allowed):

The facial mask was concocted from bananas and honey (and a couple of cucumber slices, of course!):

The facial mask itself (Fia became very interested in this treatment, as Julie was incapacitated while her face was slathered with yummy goodness):

The manicure, which Julie commented about two days later, “I’ve found it’s really unfortunate that my middle finger wound up being the blue one — out of my peripheral vision, I keep think I’m flipping myself the bird.”

And, the “total makeover,” which meant “makeup and a ponytail:”

Thus, Super Mom got her day of royal treatment.

I wasn’t sure what the interest level and/or ability of the kids would be, but, as shown below, they both dove right in (2 cards apiece) and were quite successful:

Carson posing with the animals he put together:

Once all eight animals were assembled, a little cooperative trading occurred so that each of the kids wound up with a herd with which they were happy:

Alana, foolishly, neglected to ask for another pony (or six) while she was adorned with pigtails (the pigtails being a rarity that make her father even more malleable to her whims than he normally is). But, she did proudly show off her pierced ears, which were just past the point where she was able to start switching them out with choices from the array of styles she received for Christmas.

Meanwhile, downstairs, Benton and Carson got so involved with their respective handheld devices that they didn’t realize they’d actually been sitting next to each other for more than 3 seconds without requiring adult intervention. I was optimistic all year long that it would happen at least once in 2011, and they squeaked in under the wire.

And, not one of our kids, but I’m including the picture anyway, because this picture of “‘Taterhead” just makes me chuckle (I simply can’t look at this picture without thinking, “Yes, he IS!”):

He wasn’t just walking around wearing this on his head — it was a part of a game he was playing with several of the other kids: