Colorado Springs Landscaping and Rock Climbing (Monday, August 7th, 2017)

Our kids have been working so hard on their back yard this summer.  They have moved rock, added privacy structures, laid pavers and started a fire pit to turn their steep back yard into a back yard paradise.  So we are heading down to help them with one final project; tying all of their levels together with a small deck and stairs.

As we drove down, it was really rainy...again.  This certainly isn't great weather for landscaping, but I guess we'll have to just do our best.

But when we got down there, the weather had cleared.  It was cloudy, but no rain, so we quickly got started on the last piece of their back yard landscape.  At this point, we are so thankful for a few hours without rain.

The boys went and bought all of the lumber and hardware they would need for the deck and then got to work.

The boys decided that there really wasn't enough work for three people on the deck project, so I went looking for something to keep me busy.  Out in their front yard, they had an area where their landscape rock had gotten mixed with pea gravel.  So I decided to tackle the job of figuring out how to separate them.  Oh my, where to even start... 

I tried so many different methods, but finally decided that a hand rake and gloves worked the best, digging through the pea gravel to find the large rock, and then pulling them out by hand.  I would then throw the pea gravel into the buckets to dump into the back yard.

Our son (in-law) was kind enough to empty the buckets for me. They were really heavy and I just wasn't strong enough.  



We all worked really hard all day, so when evening came, it was time for some fun.  The kids all have memberships at a place called Rock City, where they have climbing walls, slack lines, balance boards, and so many other fun obstacles.  So we went over so they could do some climbing.  Our oldest daughter was out of town with her work, so  it was just our son (in-law) and youngest daughter that would be climbing.

Our youngest daughter did mostly vertical climbs.

Our son (in-law) kept trying the inverted climbs.  

It was all very impressive.  They have so much upper body strength!  

When their upper body would get tired, they would switch to slack lining while they rested.  Starting out on the low slack line, and then working their way to the higher ones.

Then back for some more climbing.

Our son (in-law) would watch other people to see how they would navigate the inverted wall, then we would try it again.

Then back for some more slack lining.

City Rock is huge, with walls for all levels of climbers.  

When the kids were tired from climbing, we headed home to call it a night.  We set up an air mattress on an articulated frame, where we would sleep, and our grand kitty Albert immediately crawled under.  He loved it under there and pretty much lived under there until we tore it down.

We got a lot done today, there is still a lot more more to do tomorrow, so good night for now.