Hiking with Kids: Glen Falls

So last week, after my sister had worked her scheduled night shifts and power had been restored to their home in Tallahassee, she came to pick up her kids. We had a nice, quick visit and decided to take the kids on one last outing before they headed home.

Glen Falls has been on my radar for awhile, but we hadn't had the chance to go explore it yet.

Since the trail  is located across town at the base of Lookout Mountain, Angela and I thought that it would a perfect detour for a picnic as they made their way back to Florida.

Glen Falls is a quick hike – about one mile each way to the actual waterfall. The trail meanders through the woods before reaching the bluffs that house the waterfall.

You can follow the trail past Glen Falls and take a short set of stone stairs that go through a tunnel in the rock called Fat Man Squeeze. Once through the tunnel, the trail continues up to the creek that feeds the waterfall.

When we reached the waterfall, we discovered a trail crew eating lunch. It looked like they had just completed work on a new bridge. We decided to press on with the kids walk through Fat Man Squeeze before stopping to eat.

This meant we were on a small bluff, so we made sure the kids stayed in the tunnel area – no playing when there are big drop offs. I pretty sure the kids were happy to take a break in the shade of the rocks.

After we ate, we headed back down to the waterfall – we didn't want to continue on the trail since there were more kids than adults and the trail was right on the edge of bluffs.

We haven't had much rain this summer so the waterfall itself was just a trickle, and the pool at the bottom almost empty. But the kids didn't care.

All that mattered to them was that there was a bit of clear water to splash around in. They immediately waded into the water and eventually had to strip down because to them, swimming is swimming, the size of the watering hole doesn't matter!

With the promise of ice cream at Mr. T's, we convinced the kids that it was time to go. With kids, I find that having a goal is important – on the way there, the goal was the waterfall, on the way home, the goal was ice cream. It was a worthy (and tasty) goal.

I don't always think to go on hikes when Daniel isn't with me. I'm glad we went ahead and did this hike. We will have to go back after it rains to enjoy an actual waterfall.

If you are new to hiking with kids, this is a good trail to get your feet wet.

Labor Day: Paddling at Chester Frost

Last week I wrote about our unexpected cousin's weekend thanks to Hurricane Hermine. To be honest, it's hard to believe that it has only been a week since my niece and nephew went home to Florida.

Over the last seven days, we dove head first into school, fall soccer and swim lessons, and it's been a little hectic around here as we find our groove.

Labor Day was one of the first government holidays that Daniel has had off in quite a while (as I wrote on Monday, he has been working a lot of over time over the course of the last three years), and even with extra kids visiting, we knew that we wanted to do something fun as a family.

Initially we thought we would go for a hike, but my nephew, Levi, kept talking about kayaking. I'm not sure what planted this seed, but it was all that he talked about.

Earlier this year we purchased a Perception Tribe 3-person kayak, and it has been one of our best purchases. Even with little ones, we have used it a ton this summer (we also own a canoe, but it isn't as stable for paddling with small children).

We love the Perception Tribe because you can sit in the middle and paddle solo, or we can easily get out on the water as family of four (and sometimes our dog, Sophie, gets a ride too). And in this case, one adult and three kids had no problem taking it out on flat water.

We decided to go to Chester Frost lake on Labor Day because there is a sandy beach with a good launching point, and the water is shallow enough for the kids to swim when they weren't paddling.

Our crew had a blast, though more than paddling they loved to see how much seaweed they could collect in the bow of the boat. And jumping off the kayak to float in the deep water (seaweed free) was a hit too.

As parents, we have learned to follow the lead of the kids. We want them to have a good time, and if that means collecting seaweed, so be it.

Or in Isaac's case, if he just wants to spend the day sitting in the shade, snacking, we can live with that too.

Isaac has actually gotten a lot better about being out on the water.

He doesn't detest his life jacket any more and as long as he is sitting in the back of the boat he is good to go – he still hates being in the front for some reason.

Flat water paddling at Chester Frost with four kids was no big deal. We picked up lunch on the way and arrived early enough in the day that it wasn't too crowded. If you are looking for a place to swim or take kids paddling for the first time, I would definitely recommend Chester Frost.

When Isaac is a little bigger, we plan to do some overnight paddling trips, taking both our kayak and canoe with us.

It's the Final Countdown

Three long years ago, we learned that Daniel was going to be relocated from working in Hollywood, Alabama to two hours north in Spring City, Tennessee. We knew it was coming, but it still turned our world upside down. We spent eight months living out of suitcases, in and out of hotels and vacation homes during the week, until finally settling into our current home on Signal Mountain.

We both felt strongly that we made the right choice in regard to the location of our new home, but we knew it would be a difficult journey – Daniel's new position promised long hours, with a 70-minute commute each way. We were told the job would last about a year, so we hoped and prayed for the best.

To say it's been a hard experience would be an understatement. Jack went through a phase where he didn't believe that Daniel lived at our house. Which was kind of true. For months on end, Daniel worked 6-7 days a week, and sometimes weeks at a time without a day off. The hours were long. The commute was long. I felt like a single mom. We experienced a miscarriage in the middle of this trying time, and did our best to hold it together. Thankfully Isaac was born into our family a year later, but Daniel continued to struggle with having to work so much. He loved what he was doing but the long hours definitely took a toll on all of us.

Every night we say bedtime prayers with Jack and we would all pray that Daniel would get a job closer to home. It was excruciating when Jack began to put a voice to the things we were all feeling... Why hasn't God answered our prayers? Why does daddy still work so far away? Why is daddy gone all the time? Why can't daddy be home with us more?

As adults, we have experience on our side. This isn't our first rodeo. We have prayed and waited through difficult things in the past. It's much harder to explain to a child that life is full of waiting.

Most people have heard our news by now, but we are still excited! Daniel FINALLY got a new job. I won't go into how many positions he applied for, it's too demoralizing. But our prayers have been answered.

Daniel is staying with his same company but moving to corporate headquarters to join the Dam Safety team. This will be a big change from Nuclear, but the benefits for our family are beyond what we had hoped for.

Daniel's company is notorious for being slow at hiring people (even internally), so we were shocked to learn less than two weeks after his interview that he had a job offer. The company was still slow in making the transition (he got the offer when we were on vacation last month), but Daniel is FINALLY finishing his last week of work at Watts Bar! 

I don't think we will know what to do with ourselves starting next week. A 40-ish hour work week, with a 20-minute commute? What does that even look like? How do people function with all of that extra time? We CANNOT wait to find out for ourselves!!!
 

Impromptu Cousin Weekend

We didn't have any specific plans for our Labor Day weekend. There had been talk of a possible visit from some of Daniel's family, and we had also considered a camping trip, but nothing was set in stone.

A video posted by Cheree Moore (@mo_haus) on Sep 3, 2016 at 4:29pm PDT

That turned out to be a good thing.

Early Friday morning Hurricane Hermine hit northern Florida as a Category 1 hurricane and 90,000 people in the Tallahassee area (where my sister and her family live) were left without power. The city was projecting up to a week before everyone was back on the grid. Also, a lot of trees and debris were blocking roads, but thankfully everyone was ok after the storm.

Five years ago, Daniel and I had a similar experience where we were without power for an extended period after a series of tornadoes came through Alabama. At that time we cleaned out our fridge and headed to my sister's in Nashville where we waited for power to be restored.

With the tables turned, we offered to meet my sister and brother-in-law to pick up their kids for a few days with us in Chattanooga (Angela and Robert stayed behind because they still needed to work). With our plan set, we drove to a small town south of Atlanta that had a Chick-fil-A.

The kids played while we visited (enjoying the air conditioning), ate lunch, moved car seats and luggage, then headed back to Chattanooga. My sister and her husband headed back to Florida, unsure of how long they would be without power.

Our drive home was a loud one. Isaac desperately needed a nap, but he was distracted all that was happening in the car... which meant a lot of crying from him. Jack and Levi seemed to get exponentially louder as we drove (culminating with pretending to be cuckoo clocks as our trip came to a close), and there was a typical amount of bickering between kids. Daniel and I were wondering what we had gotten ourselves into.

However, once we were home, we found a groove. The hardest part of having four kids in our home was the noise level (a friend with four kids told me we would learn to tune them out), but generally speaking things went pretty smoothly. We weren't any later for church than we are with just our own two kids; kids were generally in bed, and asleep by 8:30; and we even managed to do some fun stuff with them.

We are not planning on having more kids, but it's nice to know that we can handle four if need be. It helped that my sister and I have similar parenting styles and the kids (other than Isaac) are old enough to know the rules, all eat fairly well, and have good bedtime routines. I did a lot more refereeing than I have to with just Isaac and Jack, but it was all typical kid stuff.

I will say that I found myself doing more chores than I might normally, just because I needed a break from the refereeing, and it was helpful to tell the kids that I was busy and they needed to figure out a solution themselves or help me fold laundry!

We spent Labor Day at the lake, swimming and *kayaking, then finished our day with a campfire and smores. The kids spent a lot of time playing outside, and my sister and I took them on a *hike before they went back to Florida.

The whole weekend was last minute, but it turned out to be a great experience, nonetheless.

We let Jack stay home from school for two days and he had a blast playing with his cousins. Hopefully we will have more cousin weekends as the kids get older and they will all remember these fun times together.

*I will share kayaking at Chester Frost with four kids, and our hike to Glen Falls posts in the next couple of days.

Outside 365 | August 2016

In terms of outdoor activities, I think we hit it out of the ball park in the month of August. Even with sick days in the mix, we managed to get our kids outside every day. And as far as our vacation goes, we spent almost every minute of every day outside... the only way we could have spent more time outside would have been if we had gone camping instead of staying in a cottage on a lake.

At the very end of July, Jack taught himself how to ride his bike, and we have been encouraging him to practice this skill as much as we can. We are looking forward to some bigger family bike rides in the future.

In August, we rode bikes, paddled, hiked together, visited Niagara Falls, and even introduced Jack to the joy of cliff jumping (small cliffs for him, obviously).

And as always there were many trips to the park and even time swimming with friends at the lake – Jack has fully embraced the skill of snorkeling. It is one of his all-time favorite things to do.

While on vacation, I read the book Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv and I am even more convinced (if that is possible) to make sure our children spend time in nature on a daily basis.

My childhood was not one full of activities or weekends spent playing organized sports. I wandered in the woods, rode my bike unsupervised, or studied the clouds for hours on end. On Sunday afternoons I would sit in the sun on my back stoop and dream about life, letting the warm sunshine soak into me.

Family camping trips, swimming in lakes, and hikes in the Rockies as a teenager – these are the things that have stayed with me my entire life. And this book points out that these types of experiences are disappearing. Replaced instead by a culture of fear – fear of strangers and fear of nature itself.

Paradoxically, younger generations of children are taught they need to "save" nature, but they have limited personal experiences in nature. The advancement of technology has pushed this nature connection to the side. Recess is being replaced by standardized tests and children are not being allowed to immerse themselves in the natural world.

The ideas presented were not really new to me. They are things my husband and I discuss regularly and are making a conscious effort to do differently with our own children. The book just reminded me of the importance of why we are doing what we are doing, and also has made me think more about the future and how spending time outdoors might look as our children enter the school system.

Below are some of the passages from the book that spoke to me:

Within the space of a few decades, the way children understand and experience nature has radically changed... a kid today can likely tell you about the Amazon Rain Forest – but not about the last time he or she explored the woods in solitude, or lay in a field listening to the wind and watching the clouds above.

In nature, a child finds freedom, fantasy, and privacy: a distant place from the adult world, a separate place.

As we grow more separate from nature, we continue to separate from one another.

...as more parents keep their children inside the house or under rigid control, youngsters will be deprived of chances to become self-confident and discerning, to interact with neighbors, or to learn hot to build community...

What if farms and ranches were to become the new school yards, offering lessons and hands-on experience in ecology, culture and agriculture?

The dominant form of education today "alienates us from life in the name of human domination, fragments instead of unifies, overemphasizes success and careers, separates feeling from intellect and the practical from the theoretical, and unleashes on the world minds ignorant of their ignorance." In other words, today's practices help create the know-it-all state of mind, and the accompanying loss of wonder.

We cannot care for God if we do not care for his creation. The extent that we separate our children from creation is the extent to which we separate them from the creator – from God.

This past Sunday when we got home from church, Jack said he wanted to stay outside to look at the beautiful view. He laid down on our front porch, in complete quiet and stillness for quite some time... I think we are doing something right.

A Look Back at Project Outside 365:
January 2016 ⎮ February 2016 ⎮ March 2016 ⎮ April 2016 ⎮ May 2016 ⎮ June 2016 ⎮ July 2016