Friday, September 9, 2011

Fun Forest

The Fun Forest has to be one of the coolest places we have been since visiting Germany. We almost didn't make it, we didn't get home and in bed from Bernkastle-Keus until after midnight, and everyone met at the shoppette at 9 am Sunday morning. Well we drug ourselves out of bed and woke our poor children up and made it to the shoppette in time to go. I am so glad we did because we had an amazing time with the same group of people we attended the wine fest with the day before. Micah works in the 721st AMXS and until last month has worked the flightline. The group of people he works with are amazing! They get together a lot outside of work and have all become good friends and like family to us. Rachel Martin, who is leaving Germany next spring, planning this trip to the Fun Forest. The Fun Forest is 8 obstacle courses that are in the trees. You are required to wear a harness, helmet and gloves, take a quick class on safety, and complete a "beginners" course before you are allowed to go to the obstacle course. Once you have done all of this you are on your own. Tucker was too young to do the kids course, which stunk, but Luke was able to. Luke was actually 1 month too young, so we may have told a small fib on his information paperwork so that he could participate.
Here are Rachel and I after getting our harnesses. Although we did take lots of pics not all of them were really good, and my internet is running a little slow. I tried to put the best pics together to try and show how cool these courses were.
This is our group getting some instruction before taking to the "beginners" obstacle course. I did not get pics of this because Micah and I did it together. Luke had to go with Aidan, a friend of ours little boy, to get his instruction on the kids course. The guy talking to us took Tucker over to two trees where he hung a hammock and pushed Tuck in it while Micah and I completed the beginners course.
And, of course, every time I go through pictures on our camera there is a self photo of Micah.
Micah and I had to take turns watching Tuck so the other of us could do some obstacles. Here I am on the number 1 course.
This isn't a great picture, but the course is up there in the trees if you can make it out.
Here is Luke after he got his harness on and was getting ready for his instruction.
This is the kids course.
A friend of ours, Krystal, who is Aidan's mom, is VERY pregnant and was not able to do the obstacles. She was super sweet and kept an eye on Luke while he mastered job of hooking and unhooking and rehooking (I know it's a lot of hooking) his harness straps to the cables. Once he got the hang of it there was NO getting him off the kids obstacle course. We had to bed him to take a break and come eat and get a drink.
This is him going through a net section with Krystal watching.
Here he is going across floating blocks of wood. This was so incredible, if you look closely you can see two red cords hooked above him to the wire. He had to hook himself and rehook himself every time he finished a part of the obstacle course while leaving one hook always attached. It was so impressive to watch him do this every time without ever messing up. It was also incredible to watch him go through these obstacles with such each and balance, I know he has a harness and he can't "really" fall, but his NEVER did! On a side note Tucker got really bored of watching and getting to do nothing. And, if you know Tucker, you know that if you take your eyes off him for 2 seconds he's gone and you can't find him. Well I made that mistake at the tent while eating and by the time I found him he was exactly where Luke is standing doing this obstacle course with NO harness! This may not seem like a big deal, but the area where Luke is in the picture is about 5 feet off the ground and those blocks are just hooked by cords and move every time you move. I could not believe how well Tuck was doing and I really wished he could have done it too.
This is Luke switching the hooks to go on to the next obstacle.
Here Luke is crossing the net section again.
Here is he climbing to the top.
He is going through that tunnel.
And now down the rock wall.
Across the moving platform, which is about 4 inches wide.
About the only thing Tuck could do was grab hold of the zip line, pick his feet up and swing. He thought this was so cool! A few times he let go with one hand to throw "webs" because he thought he was Spiderman.
Here Luke is harnessing himself to the zip line. This was by far his favorite part.
Here he goes!
Here is Tucker playing in the hammock.
Okay, so some of the older, but young kids, quit the obstacle course due to pure exhaustion. when this happened the place was pretty busy and the few workers were forced to pay attention to groups in need of their assistance. Luke begged and begged, so we took one of the younger kids harness and put it on Luke and took him over to the adult side. Now the reason he couldn't do the adult side is not because he was incapable, but because he was too short to reach most of the wires. So, we took him the the "beginners" course, which was NOT difficult, but a very short practice course. The same one me and Micah had to do before we were allowed to do the real thing. Pics to come in a minute.
Here is our family of climbers.
I know I told you there would be pics of Luke, but here are some of Micah. Do you see that platform? The one way up in the trees? That is where Micah is. He is getting ready to do the zip line across the lake. It was so awesome to do!
There he goes!
If you see that little white speck, that is Micah. It was one of the coolest things ever, once you get past the difficulty of jumping off the platform, of course. :)
This was our spread. There were about 25 of us and Rachel and Jhared brought brats and hamburgers and grilled out for everyone. The rest of us brought sides and we had a great lunch.
Tucker really enjoyed hanging out with the guys. Here he is bouncing Dustin on the ropes.
Here Dustin is doing Tucker push-ups.

Here are the pics of Luke on the adult practice course. The group behind him is getting instruction on what to do. Doesn't he look like a pro?
He finished the first section and smiled with confidence.
Here is is going across again with Micah in the background following.
Luke was able to stand on strategically placed blocks to hook himself to different cords. I couldn't believe he understood how to do this, the adult hooks were much more complicated and had to be locked and unlocked every time you moved one.
At the end of the practice course there was a zip line. It wasn't as big as the one going over the lake, but it was much larger than the kid one. Another side note, Micah came back across the lake using the zip line. After making it back there is a small obstacle and two other zip lines to get you to the bottom. When he made it to the last zip line the platform was about 10 feet off the ground. Bill Metz, one of the men in our group, lifted Luke up to the platform where Micah was and he got to do a huge zip line. He was so excited. And we are so lucky we did not get caught!

No comments:

Post a Comment