Running theStudio is a full-time job, sometimes it’s more than a full-time job.  This week was one of those weeks.  I’m working at hard to bring some new products your way, add a little more to the store for your scrapping needs.  New always equals head-banging for me.  It also means my kids get left a little more on their own.  Not a big deal this time of year, with the big boys home it is the ideal time for me to absorb myself in work.  However, even the big boys get bored and by friday everyone was on everyone else’s nerves.

I packed my gang up in the mini-van and we drove over to our favorite klettergarten in Rutesheim.  Dave got off work a little early and met us there as well.  All during college, Soren worked at the rock wall on campus.  He’s also done quite a bit of amateur rock-climbing, so with his help we geared Dane to go up in the trees and out of the kinderklettergarten that he so loves.  Dane is amazing.  And fearless.  He climbed up ladders like a squirrel, crossed wriggly bridges like a pro, and had zero troubles traversing tight ropes.  I blinked and next thing I knew he was zooming through trees on a zip line, laughing up a storm.

Everything took me a little longer.  My kids soon left me in the dust.  I managed every challenge quite well, if not speedily, until I hit the sled.  For some reason, suspended 20 feet off the ground, there was an old, authentic, wooden, German sled fastened to some metal cables.  The idea was to sit on the sled and roll across the cables.  The problem was getting onto the sled.  It kept moving, and I wasn’t about to jump onto a moving sled, while high up off the forest floor.  I asked Soren for help, but he was busy securing Dane to yet another zip line 30 trees over.  Dave was racing Tess across some other tree tops, so I stood there alone and confused.  And with an audience.

I don’t know if I’ve ever written about the Germans unabashed staring.  It appears to be culturally acceptable to stare.  Yesterday a young man stopped his own klettering and stared while I tried, very, very hard, to figure out how to get on a moving sled, 20 feet up from the ground, and glide from tree 1, to tree 2.

I finally did make it onto the sled, sort of, I slid off, mostly, partway across the huge gap between tree 1 and tree 2, hanging on with my thighs and dangling from my safety harness.  I imagine I looked anything but graceful.  I finally did make it, with the sled, to the tree 2, and I managed to haul myself up onto the platform.  Only then did the German boy turn away and resume his klettering. He never laughed, or smiled, or shouted encouragment, he just looked the entire time.  This is something I’m still finding difficult to acclimate to.