This week, Rachel had an interpreting conference. Usually, this means that she gets to travel and make a little vacation out of it. But, you know...Covid. So, the conference was virtual. "Coming soon to a coffeeshop near you." Not nearly as fun. But kind of cool, because it's all in Sign Language, so she can do her Zoom conferencing in public places without being too distracting. Perks of the job. Silver linings.

Anyway, what this means for the rest of the family is that we had a weekend to do stuff without Mom. Backpacking? Well...It's a bit late in the season. Too cold for one adult and five kids. Too much potential for a negative experience. Also, the entire Northwest was windy and rainy this weekend. Climbing? Rain. Camping? Rain. Hiking? Rain. Skiing? No snow. We could go to a movie or something, but we had a whole weekend in front of us that Rachel needed peace and quiet around the home.

We would visit family! Great idea! I actually got off of work a little bit early on Friday, loaded up the car, and headed out of town. For a while. And then, just when the freeway got into the mountains on a narrow road with no exits, we ran into traffic. There had been an accident. We sat in the car somewhere between two and three hours to go about 5 miles where we were able to finally turn off on a side road and reevaluate. Even if things had picked up right then, we still wouldn't have arrived until about 4:30 in the morning. And we only had one day to be there. We voted, and then turned around and made our way backed to our house.

I looked again at the weather map and found one little pocket of NotRain in the middle of the Washington desert. That was where we would go.

It was actually well worth the drive. We have been to Palouse Falls many times before, but this was the first time all five kids have been old enough to walk the trail to the actual falls and the pool beyond. It was fun. Here are some pictures:

Well, that's about it. Also, Rachel said that she had a good conference.

Have a good week!

 I've been excited about this post for some time :)

Remember back in the summertime, when we did our deck? If you don't, you should look. It was by far the biggest DIY project we had taken on, and it turned our really good. But honestly, it was mostly just screwing boards together of a predetermined length.  I was proud of it though, and it gave me the confidence to take on an even more complicated project that I have been wanting to do for a long time.

Let that be a teaser for you. First though, I want to get through some other stuff that we did this week. If you really can't wait, then just scroll down.

First up...Annual apple picking trip! Like always, this was a lot of fun. As our kids get older, it just gets better and better. We started our day by picking apples together as a family and carefully selecting which of the strawberry rhubarb pies we wanted to take home. We then separated, with all the kids hanging out in the county-fair-like atmosphere, playing games, chasing chickens, doing corn mazes, etc. Meanwhile, Rach and I sat back with a homemade cinnamon roll and some delicious local cider, and just basked in the ambiance of autumn. The crisp air, fresh smells, warm lighting and twangy music absolutely bathed the entire area in that beautiful weird melancholic  aura that I have come to love so much. Such a lovely afternoon.

Later, we would take our apples and make sweetly spiced baked goods, filling our homes with that same autumn goodness and loving every second.

*****

This has also been a fun week, because the weather has actually been really nice on some days. Even though it is October we were able to get out to the beach as a family, and Rach went out on an evening paddle with one of her friends last night. It's been great!

*****

One last thing that segues nicely into my big project. Climbing. I know, it seems like every week I have to mention something about it. Fact is, I climb a lot. And these last few weeks have been really great. Like, grade-wise at least, I have climbed more difficult routes in this last week than I ever have in my entire life. I have done lots of hard stuff and have confirmed to myself that some of my earlier successes weren't just flukes. Things that felt nearly impossible to me, even earlier this year, feel casual now.  And a lot of the more difficult stuff I am doing is going down really quickly. It feels like I have broken though a plateau and I am now better and stronger than ever, just primed and ready to be set loose upon the world of rock. A little dramatic? Maybe. But I am climbing harder than I ever thought I would, and I think I still have a lot of unleashed potential in there. 

Okay. On to the project. I think that I'll just share a before/after picture (because that's all anyone wants to see anyway), and then go through all the details if you are interested.

Before:

After:

This is a big picture that is worth clicking on to see the detail. There will be more close-ups down below.

So, what you are looking at is my "shop." There are quotes around that word for a reason. When I first moved here, I had great aspirations of becoming a master craftsman and making things out of wood. Next, I thought it would be cool to restore classic cars or something. I dunno. Obviously, I was trying hard to be someone I don't think I could ever be, but I spent a lot of time and money getting this area ready for those kinds of things. I got lots of tools. Set things up nice. Even got an old motorcycle to work on. It was admirable.

It looked nice, but, because I am me, it never actually got used. I mean, there was that one time when I fixed one of our kitchen chairs. But that just required some wood glue and a clamp, so, maybe not the best example. The motorcycle just sat there and collected dust.

Eventually, also because I am me, I realized that it would be nice to have a place to work out occasionally instead of driving to the gym. I installed a little workout station and a couch to rest on.

See the exercise stuff on the right?

This is pretty much how things stayed for the next several years. And I did use it. Like, a lot. But now I had all this extra space that was just filled up with tools and stuff. I was in there enough though, that an idea started forming. About a year ago we put a pool table in there and the transformation started.

And then the dam broke, metaphorically speaking. But in a good way. Like a dam that you wanted to break.

Bad analogy. 

But things sort of lined up and then happened all at once; The deck gave me the confidence, Covid gave me the time, and Rach allowed me to use our money. This thing was going to happen!

The first problem was figuring out where to put all those dang tools though. I should probably just sell them. But a part of me feels like "a man should have tools," so I was able to move most things to the garage where they can continue to collect dust. For the yard-care stuff, I built a little add-on to the back of the shop.

Not too fancy, but it'll do. I even shingled the roof!

Now that things were cleared out, I could move on with paint, carpet, new workout equipment, furniture stuff, and the installation of the central feature- the Tension Board.

I actually had to pull out some of my climbing knowledge to get this thing up. I suppose I could have just gotten a bigger ladder, but climbing around in those rafters was only like a V3, so not too bad. Also, if you look on the left, you can see the crevasse rescue haul system I used to get the wall into place.

So...I don't have a shop anymore. Which is great, because I, Logan Hazard, don't need a shop. I need a gym. And a rec-room. And I couldn't be happier with our results.

At this point, it is probably best to just show close up photos. Moving in a clockwise direction...

Hang out area. Guitars. And, of course, I love my books.

Fridge, sound system, pool table with table tennis topper that stores underneath. The two big bins on the right were part of the construction process and will be gone soon.

Undersized television (Black Friday might mean something this year...), climbing stuff, campus board, and hangboard. Rachel and Evelyn did all the artistic painting. I think it turned out great.

Treadmill, bike trainer, Tension Board, weights, power tower, and CrossFit equipment (you can barely see retractable gymnastic rings on the top right. Again, Rachel's paint job is spectacular. BTW, each "skyline" in this picture is particularly meaningful to us. Cool, right?

If you do much gym climbing, you can probably skip this next part. But I have been asked repeatedly, "What the heck is a Tension Board? How is it different than any other home climbing wall?"

Well, my friend, you have come to the right place. A tension board is a tool, an instrument, an entire climbing gym in an 8x12 foot piece of plywood. In short, a Tension Borad is the very best piece of rock climbing training equipment in the known universe. You may have heard of its more popular cousin, the Moonboard. The TB is better though, by a long shot. At least, that's my opinion. But seriously, lots of coaches agree with me, so...there is that.

Use the analogy of a keyboard. Every piano you ever see will have the same configuration of white keys and black keys. For the most part, they are tuned the same so that an E flat in my living room sounds the same as the one at the local bar. But then you look, and using this same basic set-up, you have virtually an endless variety of music that can be played, from Mozart to The Doors.

Alright, the analogy ends there. Let's move back to the Tension Board (TB). Every TB that you see is exactly the same, whether it be the one at my house, or the one in a random climbing gym in Taiwan. The holds, the spacing...even the exact angle that the holds are screwed in at. Furthermore, every hold has an LED light underneath it that can be one of four colors. This makes it so that people can set their own routes, and then share them with their friends or with the world at large using the internet and a bluetooth app. I could make a route in my gym, put it in the database, and then you, in Colorado or Salt Lake City or Argentina, can go to your own TB and with the push of a button light up the exact same holds and sequences. I can also post a video of me climbing the route so you can get help with the beta (information about how to do it), or you could mirror the route (the board is symmetrical) to work similar movements on both sides of the body. Man, I could go on and on. As of this minute, the database has 21,166 routes in it, all searchable by various criteria. 

It is a really neat tool.

You might have noticed in my photos that the wall is blank. That is because the holds, over three hundred of them, not to mention the lights, are all being shipped to me as I write this post. That also means that in the very near future I will be setting the wall. If anyone wants to help, I'll provide you with food, drink, and a free pass to hang out with me whenever you want :).

Can I just say that this project, to me, is a dream come true? I mean, wow. If I could go back in time and describe to myself the life that I am living right now it would automatically erase every little bit of  hardship that I've ever dealt with. But then...would I be living this life? Probably not. But that's a question for another day. The point is, We Are young! Life is fun! We're gonna make the most of it (make the most of it)!

Or something like that.

Have a good week!

The Hazard family is ready to be done with this hybrid homeschool thing.

That is all. I could say a lot more...but I won't.

But I will say that we are ALL in agreement. The kids don't like it. We don't like it. It makes it difficult to form any kind of stable schedule. Can we just be done already?

*****

Meanwhile, we stay as active as ever. A lot of my free time has been spent on the shop/rec room. It's looking REALLY good, and I am excited to share pictures when it is all finished. Maybe next week. For now, just know that my dream is taking the shape of reality and it is amazing.

As for family activities, here are a few photos/stories for you:

Rachel (back right) spending time with her friends. We got a couple paddleboards and kayaks and are trying to enjoy them for a little while before it gets too cold. 

The kids and I hiked to the top of the ski resort. It won't be too much longer before we are here on a weekly basis. The kids were amazed to see what all their favorite trails look like without snow, and are excited to get back out in the winter. We chose Lookout Pass this year because that is where most of their friends ski and they are all good enough by now to explore the mountain on their own. Should be fun. 

This is from our Superquick trip to Utah last weekend. We went to a lantern festival with Griffin and Erin while the kids played with their cousins. Honestly, it was way cooler than I expected it to be. The lanterns looked like glowing jellyfish, and looking up and being surrounded by them was a surreal experience. There was also live music and festival food to set the mood. Definitely a trip that was worth it and won't be forgotten.

I am publishing the following journal entry with Addy's permission. She wrote this in bed the night before her birthday. I am happy to say that the day came, and she is still our weird, fun Addy girl. Just one year older. But this writing...I love it!

*****

Last Night of a Ten Year Old

Hello, Adalie Hazard talking. Right now I am on my bed, thinking about tomorrow. 9:16am, to be exact.

Why?

Because at that time, on the ninth of September, 2020, is the time I will never be ten again. I know, crazy, right? I WILL NEVER BE TEN AGAIN!

Ten is a good year. Ten is the year I'm in 4th grade. Ten is the year I'm still counted as a child.

Growing up. That is what scares me.

Growing up. I will be more "mature," and being weird will be "wrong." I don't want that. I want to be ten. Ten, when being weird isn't bad, and being mature isn't enforced.

And I don't want to work. That seems hard. Five days a week, every week, except retirement and breaks- 50 years!

I like being ten. Ten is a good age.

Well, I guess I can't do anything about it now. Now I just have to hold my breath and hope reality doesn't sweep away those long days, dreaming up games and stories, hoping it doesn't introduce maturity too soon. All I can do is hold on to every second- EVERY PRECIOUS SECOND- of being ten. All I can do is wait.

Wait for tomorrow. Wait for reality. Wait until the next age.

Wait, as the seconds I try so hard to hold slip away from my fingertips. Wait for the new life, the new world, the new way.

Ten is leaving fast, and all I can do is watch- watch as it blows away like sand in the desert. Watch as it leaves me- all those seconds, minutes, hours, all tangled up in that one year. That one year when I was just on the brink of reality.

But tomorrow, at 9:16 am, I must fall.

Fall into a mass of maturity and hopes and dreams being crushed.

Or...

Maybe they won't. And maybe it won't. And maybe everything will just be exactly the same, except I will be one year older. And maybe all my hopes and dreams will be the same.

I'll just be...me.

Except one year older.

Well, goodnight.

*****

So, Addy and Jack had their birthdays, and it was obviously a pretty significant event for at least one of them. We did a small family celebration, and they have parties/sleepovers with friends all lined up. We'll write more on that when it actually happens.

*****

In other news, school has started up again and we have managed to fall into a nice, easy routine. For now, the kids are limited to going only 2 days per week, but we are hoping that changes soon. Rachel is working more regular hours, and we enjoy our weekly breakfast dates on Mondays. Football season has also started up and we had fun watching the Seahawks trounce their opponents in the season opener last Sunday.

Back to school!

Evelyn always lays out her clothes the night before school. Picking out her facemask as part of the set-up definitely speaks to the weird time we are in.

We have also been busy, as always, with our latest project. At first it was to put in a small climbing wall up in the shop. Well, if you give a mouse a cookie...or if you give Logan a climbing wall...This simple idea has quickly blossomed into a much larger thing that we are now calling the "rec room." Painting, carpet, furniture, a really cool climbing area, workout equipment, etc. It's going to be the room I always dreamed of having. It's lots of work right now, but I'm pretty excited about it.

Rach and Ev about to get serious about painting

Another recent development is that we sold our boat! Never fear, this is only a temporary situation, and I am super glad we were able to sell it before the winter time. This boat was always intended to be a "learning boat," where we could learn the basics and get a feel for if/how we would use this new toy. Well, it was time to move on, and we are already looking forward to next Spring when we will bring in a newer, better, smaller, and more powerful boat that will perfectly fit our family's desires. And as a bonus- no need to worry about boat storage as it gets colder outside!

And finally, here is a picture of us at Silverwood. It was a fun day as a family. I stayed with Lindsey most of the time, and the older kids split into teams and went off on their own. Rach (who was getting pizza for us when we took this photo) sort of roamed between groups with her gimpy foot.

Oh- about Rachel's foot. Good news! It is not broken any more and doctors are really optimistic about a full recovery. It is still pretty weak, but with determination and physical therapy I don't think it will be long before she is back up and running full speed ahead!

 There isn't a lot to write this week, but there are a lot of pictures. Last weekend, the kids and I took advantage of some nice weather and went on a short backpacking trip. Everyone did awesome, we told stories on the trail, we explored the mountains, and we enjoyed one of the most spectacular sunsets we have seen in a while. We saw a few other hikers who commented to me how "brave" I was to take five kids out on my own. I'll take the compliment, but honestly, all five of them were pretty much self sufficient. There was no complaining, and the kids pitched in with all the camp chores so much that I hardly had to do anything. This is definitely something that we have "dialed" in our family.

Here's some photos:

Getting started

Our destination was Harrison Lake, high up in the Idaho Selkirks

Addy and Jack pitched the kid tent. I slept in a bivy. I think all our packs put together weighed less than fifty pounds. Mine was probably just over half of that. Not bad for a group of six. Like I said, we have this dialed.

I wasn't expecting to make a campfire (too much work for me), but the kids had other plans. They made this, basically, on their own.

There is no editing on this picture that I just took with my cell phone. It was beautiful.

Good morning face!

It is a well-documented fact that ice cream and burgers taste twice as good after a backpacking trip.

*****

Other activities:

Annual free dental day. It was a little slower this year than in the past, and we had several team members who couldn't show up. Those of us who were there still had fun though.

*****

Also, we got our family pictures back. My sister, Allison, does professional photography and took these. It was about time we updated!

I should mention that I took Ev's picture on my phone. Things were crazy and I don't think my sister was able to get to all the kids. Personally, I think it turned out pretty good.

I also did Jackson's. All the rest are Allison's work though.

We have lots of pictures of lots of poses, but this is the one we finally decided to put in our home. This picture wasn't planned at all. Allison just said "be silly," and this is how it turned out. Great timing on her part!

Extended Hazard family

Alright, have a good week!

This last week we drove down to Burley, a smallish town in Southern Idaho, and met up with my parents, grandparents, and siblings for the annual Hazard Family Reunion. All of us were able to stay together in the same AirBnb on a farm, which we used as a jumping-off point for our different activities. It was a great time to reconnect with family, and for kids to re-make friends with their cousins. Lot's of activity. Lots of talking. Lots of play.

Good times. Here are some photos.

Lava Hot Springs...

Giant 200-yard-long slip and slide at a cool farm that was replete with fun kids activities. They also had a zipline.

Lake day

Park day

And lots and lots of just "hanging out"

Rachel and me catching a nap in the sun.This last one's a little blurry, but I think it demonstrates how relaxed we were all able to be. Good times.

It was tons of fun. Not pictured was golfing, a crossword puzzle competition with quirky questions about family members, and a Jeopardy game featuring questions about Grandma and Grandpa's lives. There are countless meaningful moments that weren't captured on film, but will make a huge difference in holding on to these treasured family connections.

*****

Part of the reunion was going to include rock climbing at the City of Rocks, but the days were pretty warm and we thought that carting a bunch of young children into the remote desert with zero access to local amenities might be pushing it just a little. This didn't slow our family down though. There is no way we were going to be that close to the best climbing area in the state without at least a short visit.

The day the reunion ended, instead of driving home, we went to the wonderful Almo Inn where we had reserved the largest suite available for a belated Hazard Holiday.  The kids had fun just running around the place and reminded us on multiple occasions- "MomDad- this place has FOUR decks!" It was sort of a cool little inn, and Rachel and I definitely used one of those decks after the kids were tucked into their beds for one of our cherished "deck nights." There is something about these nights that will never get old- sitting outside, taking in the view and the sunset and the combined experiences of the day, and just relaxing as it all expires into darkness over the course of savory food/drink and good conversation. I love it.

The next morning, Jack and I woke up in the dark and headed off for his first multi-pitch climb. It was called Theater of Shadows, four pitches, on a formation called Jackson's Thumb, and it was an experience I think neither of us will forget any time soon. Jack led every pitch and I couldn't have asked for a better, more competent partner. We both enjoyed the movement and the location, as well as each other's company, and quickly found ourselves on top before the sun hit our location. After a brief time taking in the view and congratulating each other, we rappelled down and got back to the rest of the family in time for breakfast.

The start of a great day

Jackson about half way up the first pitch

Summit!

Another summit photo. It was a great morning. This kid is awesome.

The 150 foot free-hanging rappel was a unique feature of this climb- especially since it was Jackson's first rappel ever unless you count the practice we had done two days earlier off the monkey bars of a backyard swing-set.  He did awesome!

Later that day we did more climbing with the rest of the family. Even Rachel hobbled out to watch and belay as the kids and I climbed around on a cool formation called the Anteater. My favorite was on the way back to the car when Addy said "Hey Dad- we have a COOL family. I like us."

Maren on a neat climb called "Swiss Cheese." At only 5.7, it was still one of the scarier leads I have done since the climb is virtually unprotectable. A fall on this thing would mean...well...bad things. Let's just leave it at that and not think too hard about it. Once the toprope was set though, it was nothing but big moves, and big fun for the kids!
I like us too. It was a great trip.

Lindsey

Different area called Practice Rock. I love seeing things like this- the whole family set up climbing and belaying on a bunch of different routes all at once. From left to right you have Evelyn climbing and me belaying, Addy climbing with Maren belaying, and Lindsey climbing with Jackson belaying. Rachel took the picture. You know what they say: The family that climbs together...is just freaking awesome. Or something like that. 

Anyway, have a good week!