My Little Monkey

Luciana is near the top, on the right, in the top picture.

Luciana surprised and impressed me today at the rock wall climbing activity. She jumped right into it, with no fear, as I expected. She started off on the small wall (25 feet), and much to my surprise, scrambled up to the top several times. She enjoyed the 'rappelling' back down. We took a small break for lunch and then moved to the big walls (50 feet). Again, she was ready to go and got in on the first climbing set. Holy crap!! The girl made it up the 50 foot climb without even stopping at the rest point. She then decided to try the camel back climb--still 50 feet, but this time at a 45 degree angle OUTWARD, not inward. It was a run designed for teens/adults, so the holds were quite far apart. She was determined to do it anyway. She made it over the first camel hump, but when she got to the second, the holds were farther apart than was physically possible for her to stretch. She still wasn't willing to give up and spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out a way to make it work. She finally conceded defeat on that run, and moved back to the straight wall climbs. It was cloudy all day, but the rain held off until it was time to leave at around 2:45. She's going to sleep well tonight, and I hope she's not sore tomorrow.

After Mark got home from work, we decided to grab some dinner out and then hit the dreaded grocery store. Luciana was hellbent on going to Fazoli's and only Fazoli's. No amount of begging or bargaining was going to sell her on another place, so Fazoli's it was. They changed their menu (for the worse) and raised their prices. Then off to Woodmans, where we spent way too much money on food. Dejanique was with Jessica and Levi, and as usual, didn't want to join us. Petey decided to "help" me unpack groceries by ripping open the package containing my frozen pizza crusts. It's always something with him. As I type, Dejanique is chowing down on Wheat Thins chips and Jasper is mauling the bag and begging like a dog. Dej had a message on the machine from JC Penney's, wanting to set up an interview. She will call back in the morning. I will make sure she is up nice and early to take care of that :) Oh, well, super! Petey just popped up for a cuddle, and I see he has lost another collar.

I finished up my Herbivore magazine this afternoon, while at the rock climbing, and there were some wonderful articles in there--a lot of food for thought. The issue's topic was activism. I need to ponder some things for a day or so but will probably write about some thoughts on this soon.