{Hiking and Rock Climbing Adventure}

We had such a fun day today. We were supposed to meet our friends by the expressway at 8:30 a.m. We were about 25 minutes late, partially due to the fact that we were SPEEDING; therefore, we got pulled over by the cops and were served a ticket. It was about a 45 minute drive to get to this mountainous area which is appropriately known as "Lost World" on the Motobu Peninsula. When we were close this is what it looked like...

It's very dense and thick forest. It's beautiful. This darn camera doesn't do it justice. In this picture below we started our hike. Our friends who invited us had enough rock climbing helmets for our boys too and they had to wear them not only when rock climbing, but also on our hike.

For most of the hike were were treking through rocky terrain. BIG boulders to little rocks. It had rained earlier so they rocks were VERY slippery. We were falling all over the place, especially on the way back. Luckily nobody was hurt in the process. :) It was about a 30 minute walk and Jaydon walked all on his own. He is such a big boy. He loved it. Here is Tanner below posing for a picture in the only flat part of our hike.

Here is the rocky wall we decided to climb. If you look you can see some rock climbers already on the wall. There is a HOLE that you can climb up into inside the mountain and it takes you to the top. We didn't try it, but our friend has done it before and i guess it was cool.

Here are the boys standing by there favorite spot. Right behind them is a cave. It travels downward a bit and then brings them out on the other side of the mountain. They played in this when they weren't rock climbing. It was a fun perfect cave for kids.

Here's Gavin rock climbing. He did AWESOME. He is a natural.

Here is Tanner posing for us. He enjoyed rock climbing. He was a bit cautious the first time, but the second time he was more confident and went up a bit higher than the first time.

Jaydon even did some rock climbing. He didn't get too far, but he did it! And he looked so cute in his rock climbing gear.

Shane rock climbing...

And me.....

Starting our hike back down to our car....

Jaydon had a great hiking stick. There were perfect THICK bamboo sticks, just the boys sizes. They grabbed them and used them as their hiking sticks on their way down our slippery, rocky mountain. I was holding one hand most of the time. He was slipping every 10 seconds. AND he nearly fell in a ditch. I thought we were safe, and we were at the end. He fell and i screamed b/c i thought he was falling into a rocky ditch about 6 feet down. Luckily, there was some kind of NET underneath some leaves he fell on. Lucky.

On our drive out....

And this is what happened on the way home....

We were there from about 9:45 to 3:45. It was so much fun. They have THREE boys as well. Gavin is just a little older than their first son, who is also names Gavin. Tanner is just a little older than their second son, Taylor. And Jaydon is a little bit older than their Third son, Owen. They all got DIRTY , head to toe. It was Taylor's birthday and his mom asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday. He wanted to rock climb to the top and watch the sunset and eat cupcakes. They told him he could invite TWO friends and he chose Tanner and is family as ONE of them. So sweet. So, she had lunch and snacks for us and they had tons of rock climbing equipment. Shane and I really want to do that more often. We also want to get scuba certified! So much fun! I realize we really are an outdoor family, but we need to get out a bit more to do those things.

We are going to make a trip with them to the Kerama Islands. It's about a 1 1/2 hour ferry ride to some of the most beautiful islands around, with some of the best snorkeling and scuba you will find. I seriously can't wait.