IHOP and the Climbing Wall

I spent the entire week in beautiful Battle Creek, Michigan for work. Being reunited with my wonderful girls, we thought we would celebrate this morning by going to IHOP for breakfast. We all ate pancakes and had really great time...a fantastic start to the day!

Afterwards, we went to Lewis & Clark Outfitters in Springdale to see if Emma wanted to try out the climbing wall. We arrived about 90 minutes before the wall opened, so we browsed the store for awhile. The long stairs to the upper level were a big hit with Brooklyn. So much so, we had a hard time getting her to do anything else. While upstairs, the girls played in the tents displayed up there. I was standing next to the stair at an outdoors guide table reading up on some good hiking areas in Arkansas. That's when I see Brooklyn heading toward the stairs. Quickly. I start to make my daring life-saving dive for her when my foot kicks a large framed picture they had resting against the table I was standing near. Allison grabbed Brooklyn before she tackled the stairs alone, and I smashed the glass frame of the picture. We offered to pay for the damage, but the workers just said "no way...we told them it was a terrible place to put it...this just makes us right!". I agreed with them, but felt terrible.

Later in the day, we decided to try to wall again (now that it was open). Emma is a little finicky, so we weren't sure if she'd try it or not. She walked up without a second thought, got harnessed, and started climbing. She got just above our reach before she got nervous and didn't want to go further. It's still about 8-10 feet up in the air, so we were all really impressed. She really enjoyed being let down on the rope, too. In fact, the nice guy just let her hang there and swing for a few minutes! She did great!

Then Allison said "maybe Daddy should do it!"...and I did. I'm terribly afraid of heights, and not exactly "in shape". But I got about halfway up before my shoulder started cramping up and came down. Seeing as though I had very low expectations of myself, I was semi-impressed. Below are some photos of Emma's big climb.