June 20

This morning we all woke up, ate breakfast, and then drove over to Skypark at Santa's Village, which is located just a few miles from our rental house here in Lake Arrowhead. The location holds a great deal of sentimental value for Adam's dad and his six siblings, as they can remember visiting with their parents when they were young. And since we're here to remember and celebrate Bob and Joan, it made sense to go as a group.

Anyway, upon arrival at Skypark, we met up with a smallish portion of the extended family (yep, the group picture in the center isn't the entire bunch) and went inside to check it out.

I knew very little about Skypark prior to today, but it's essentially an amusement park for active people. We took part in a variety of activities, including axe throwing (which I was not good at; I successfully hit the target a whopping one time and promptly quit while ahead), shooting (again, not good at that, but Adam's mom was alarmingly talented), archery (which came back to me immediately, even though I hadn't held a bow and arrow for at least 20 years), Wight family word searching during lunch (and man, are we a dedicated bunch when it comes to word searches), and rock climbing. Given that I have zero upper body strength, I didn't make an attempt at the latter, but the boys all did, and victoriously rang the bells at the top. Brady especially enjoyed flexing his ability to pull himself up with just his arms. We also rode bicycles on a track suspended in the air, saw the terrain from an itty bitty train, and drove pedal cars along a cute little track. 

There were also treats from the sweet shack (and how Isaac and Brady plowed through their giant lollipops like they did is a mystery to me). 

And ziplining.

I don't care much for heights and generally become jelly-legged while standing in high places so ziplines have always been a hard pass for me, but for some reason, I decided today would be the day I would go for it. So I was weighed along with the other participants in our group (and fully gratified to see so many of my fellow ladies in the G-weight class!) and put on a helmet and was strapped into my harness. And although I initially went the wrong way walking to the starting point (thanks to some creative directions from the archery guy) and was briefly lost in the woods on a bike trail (much to Adam's great amusement), and wasn't entirely sure I'd be able to climb the stairs to the starting platform or able to make myself step off the platform and plummet toward the ground once the ride was complete, I took the challenge anyway. And I did it. I screamed in terror the entire way down the line and made my children wonder "is that mom?" long before I came into view, but I made it. And honestly, I'm pretty proud of myself for facing a fear because I know that God doesn't want us to live in fear of anything (except being separated from Him). 

So although I'm congested and not feeling the best physically, I'm grateful for the many blessings that today delivered. I'm grateful for time with my immediate and extended family and for the unexpected jolt of boldness that helped me to face a very real fear. It can feel great to conquer scary things.