EARTHSHINE (Day 3)

Okay, so I fell off the wagon with Day 3 of our Earthshine adventure, but now I'm back and ready to roll.

CAUTION: If you are just now joining the Earthshine adventure, you'll want to wander back to Day 1 to get caught up. And since I haven't mastered linkage yet, you'll have to click on the side bar to connect you to Day 1.

Our first adventure of the day was heading into the woods to the Cherokee Indian village.

We were greeted by Hungry Wolf (a/k/a Steve), who gave us directions about the village and how the Cherokee used to live. Then we headed over to learn how to throw tomahawks, like the Indians used to do. They used these for hunting small animal like rabbit, and sometimes even deer.

Laci was so excited, she nailed her target right on, and is going for another.
Of course brother tried his best to copy.
They were afraid "wild thang" was going to slice his ear off. Thank goodness the blades were extra dull.

Then we made clay pottery and set it on the fire to dry.



Then came the cool part. We headed inside the wigwam. All Indian huts, tents, wigwams, whatever you want to call them, had fires in the middle of them. We had a fire pit but no fire. It was actually nothing but black coals. Hungry wolf put the black coals in a bowl, mixed it with water and made paint. This is how the Indians used to do it. Then he went around the room and everyone had to think of a special animal they liked, for whatever reason, and then we had to think of an Indian name for ourselves based on this animal.

We were actually quite impressed with how creative the kids got with their names. They even helped us adults out! After we came up with our names, Hungry Wolf painted a picture depicting our name on our faces. (OUR INDIAN MARKS)

Here we are with our marks.
Beth was = Red Bird (meaning beauty) (my daughter gave me this name :)
Laci was = Singing Bird (Because she's always singing)
Greg was = Roaming Elk (Because he likes to hunt the great beast)
Caleb was = Wild Wolf (Need I say more???)

And then on our way back up to the lodge, we had a surprise visit from the Easter bunny, who assisted us on our Easter egg hunt.


Don't you just want to pinch his little cheeks?

Then comes the Easter egg hunt. Caleb discovers there's candy in his eggs.


Then we have a little lunch, and a little rest, then comes the BIG kids fun. We go for a little zipliner fun through the trees! It's 7 courses through the treetops, each course sporting it's own individual unique qualities, each completely different. We zoomed from treehouse to treehouse.

Here's Eric, one of our guides. He looks much more graceful than I did!

Yep, we zipped from treehouse to treehouse. I did not carry my camera with me because I was afraid I would ruin it somehow, but I sure missed lots of good pictures. There was one course where we had to swing to the next treehouse on a Tarzan rope. While swinging we were encouraged to do the Tarzan yell. I did the Jane-panic-I'm gonna-die scream instead. Then we did a double wammy course where we raced our spouses to the finish line. Guess who lost that one? Then we had to zoom over the lake for our last course. Our guides were wonderful, and very experienced. They really tried to make it fun (for us scaredy cats). Eric had told us you can do one of two things, you can embrace your fear, or let it embrace you. I let mine embrace me. I really, really tried not to, but this is the reason why I do not ride roller coasters, et cetera. I just cannot handle it, stomach-wise that is. I really thought after the high ropes course this would be a cinch, but then of course I find out that we're not just zipping thru the air, we're free-falling backwards, swinging on Tarzan swings, et cetera. But afterwards my hubby told me he was really proud of me and that he couldn't believe I did it. (DID I HAVE A CHOICE??) For those of you who know my husband, he's very persistent.

So after our lovely adventure we gather up the children and a bunch of us head to the catfish pond for a little fishing. Laci has been wanting us to take her fishing for quite some time now. Greg's famous words "When you're older!" But she actually did great. She mastered casting her line quite well. Caleb mastered tangling his up.
But guess who got the fresh catch of the day?
Your's truly :)

That night after dinner we had a little birthday celebration for Caleb.

Who needs to make a wish anyway, just blow out the candles.


Then we ended our day with a campfire up on the hill behind the lodge (and I mean straight up the hill). Us old people huffed and puffed until we finally made it (straight up)!

I kept inquiring as to why the fire wasn't in the pit down behind our room, but after we got to the top of the hill, I knew why we came up there. The views were magnificent, and the grass was so green. The kids had a blast playing.






As usual, Laci and Caleb did not want to leave the next morning.

We had wonderful memories of Caleb's 4th birthday!