Well it’s official now; we have two elementary school students. The much anticipated first day of school has now come and we had quite a crowd at the end of our driveway. The reason…. our friends wanted to know if Holly was going to cry when Anna got on the bus to start kindergarten.
Last year we made quite an ordeal over Ben’s first day of kindergarten and we didn’t want to shortchange Anna! So we documented our morning routine in pictures and had the added company of our neighbors the Coyne’s and our other neighbor Kate Lauer and her four kids. So, Millie started second grade, Noah and Ben started first grade, and Anna started kindergarten today and now Holly’s days will be filled with plenty of one-on-one time with little Gwen…. and probably plenty of mom time with Kate drinking coffee and laughing at us working folk.
Holly spent many of her earlier summers at Ohiopyle State Park in PA. Her uncle is a long-time river guide and Holly herself spent a few summers as a river guide on the Youghiogheny River (or Yough as they call it). The first time I ever visited Holly’s family, it involved a drive through Ohiopyle. Then Holly eventually got me out for a short rafting trip down the Middle Yough on a shredder… a very mild trip that her dad did beside us in a canoe.
Last year, we decided that we would not only spend a night at Ohiopyle, we would would also bring our two oldest kids, invite my sister and her family (and four kids), and that WOULD do a guided trip down the Lower Yough. It was a fantastic trip and the idea was kind of born to make it an annual thing.
So this year, to coincide with Holly’s regular trip to see her parents, we planned our overnight Ohiopyle Trip for the first Monday and Tuesday of August. In keeping with tradition, my sister and her family drove up to meet us at my in-laws place near New Stanton, PA, for an evening of bonfire and ghost hunting with the kids and Uncle Matty. As not unusual for me when I get to PA, I ended up not feeling well (probably due to drinking too much of Uncle Matty’s home brew) and missed the entire evening. But on a bright note, I did get 12 hours of sleep to prepare for the river!
We left just after lunch on Monday to give the day some time to warm up. The drive was just over an hour and we went directly to the Natural Waterslides, a small feeder stream (Meadow Run) to the Yough where you can sit on the smooth rocks and slide down the stream. As usual for us, the water was freezing so I think the hardest part is being brave enough to sit in the water! With temperatures in the 80s, we weren’t going to get any help here. Holly led the way followed by our very adventurous Ben who has now been down the slides three years in a row (not bad for a 6 year old). Of course, Holly catches him at the first deep part. A bonus this year, my brother-in-law Sam actually took the plunge this year and did the slide. After a few runs, we move down stream a bit where we can all just sit and play in the water. My sister found a pretty large trout stuck in a small pool of water. After a few bets, I dove in to try and catch it by hand. That wasn’t happening.
Next, Holly took Sam on “the Loop,” a short section of the Lower Yough. This was also Sam’s first time out on the river. Instead of the longer, guided tour, Holly and Sam went out on a shredder for about an hour long ride. While they did that, my sister Lisa and I took the kids to a small little beach above the falls right in Ohiopyle. The rapids were pretty fast (as I found out while wading out) but this beach was great because there was a small pool with fairly warm (and shallow) water for the kids to play in. It was also nice and relaxing to sit in the cool water with the warm sun coming down. Maybe it was an hour, maybe it was two. No clue. After their ride, we were joined by Holly’s brother and his wife and he viewed the falls and then took the kids for ice cream (something Holly has never done at the river before). If you make the trip to Ohiopyle though, I will give you fair warning that if you want to wade out to the rocks in the middle of the river, be prepared to go down a few rapids on your back en route! Your best bet is to cross the river on the walking trail and go in from the opposite side of the public beach area.
Before heading to the campground for the evening, we took a short hike down to Cucumber Falls. This was the first good ‘rock’ challenge for the kids as after going down some steps, there’s about 300 feet of rocks to navigate (though we did find a shorter way back afterwards). Cucumber Falls gets its name because it’s a popular hangout for copperhead snakes. According to the story, copperheads smell like cucumbers but that is probably just a myth.
We spent our evening around the campfire at Kentuck Campground where one can rent a single or multi-family camp site as well as cabins or Yurts. We like the multi-family site for obvious reasons (as we were two families), but with the added benefit of being able to park two vehicles at the site. The kids love fire, especially Ben. Although we spend most of the night telling them not to poke sticks in the fire and then pull the sticks out, it’s still worth it for how excited they get to make their sticks, roast hot dogs, and make s’mores. We also had a very uneventful frog hunting expedition led by the park rangers. It may have been a lot more fun but there were way too many people.
Day two was intended to be a bit more relaxed but in reality, it was much more physically demanding! We went back to Cucumber Falls, but this time we hiked toward the river and climbed the rocks near Cucumber Rapids on the Lower Yough. We sat here to watch the guided rafting tours as they made their morning runs. It was very nice to sit by the rapids and enjoy the beautiful, overcast morning. The kids had a great time (as scary as it was for me to watch) going from rock to rock… just a slip and a fall away from heading down the rapids themselves. I think I got some of the best pics of the trip here.
One of my favorite parts of Ohiopyle is the bike trail. It is part of the Great Allegheny Passage that runs from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, MD (with a follow on trail going all the way to Washington, D.C.). We rented bicycles (and I got to pull Ben and Anna in a little cart behind me) and took a short ride down to Swimmer’s Rapid. My favorite part of Swimmer’s Rapid is the big sign that says “no swimming” when you get there. However, this is the unofficial training ground to teach rafters how to react when hitting the water and how to get out safely. While we did not make any jumps into the river, we did hike down to watch the rafters. One of Holly’s favorite things to do here is to hike a bit upstream to watch the rafters as they go by Dimple Rock. As one of the more challenging (and dangerous) parts of the Lower Yough rafting trip, it is the most likely spot to watch a raft flip! Well after falling out there, they get to glide down Swimmer’s Rapid which is partly why it makes a great training ground! Anyways, it started raining and the rocks got very slippery (or slippy in Pittsburgh talk) so we decided to head back up to the trail without seeing any exiled rafters.
Basically, that was the end of the trip. We biked back up to town, headed to the campground, packed up, and departed. Holly will enjoy another week with the family and I drove back to the DC area with my sister to upload the pics, write this blog entry and get ready to wake up in 6 hours for work!
For those that are close to us, you already know that our son Ben has Apraxia. Ben suffers from Verbal, Oral, and Limb Apraxia which, if I can sum this up in one sentence, means that he has trouble making the muscles in his mouth and limbs do what his brain is telling them to do. So he has developed much slower than his peers in speech, gross motor and fine motor function. Thanks to the Cherab Foundation (which helped us diagnose his condition) and fairly regular, semi-aggressive therapy, Ben is progressing very well, and we hope that by the time he is 10 years old, nobody will have trouble understanding him speak.
Ben just finished kindergarten and we wanted to continue a regular therapy regime. He is in summer school and getting one hour of speech and occupational therapy daily (M-F). He will be getting an hour and a half a week at school once the new school year begins. Holly has also started taking sign language classes with Ben weekly with an instructor in Charlottesville. This, we hope, will help Ben lessen some of his frustration at getting his message across when he can’t say the correct words. That still leaves physical therapy. We considered physical therapy at UVA but Ben is doing so well at jumping, balancing, and overall gross motor function. We attribute a lot of that to the 15′ trampoline in the backyard and Ben’s own social nature of wanting to do what all the other kids are doing. So instead of regular physical therapy, Holly really wanted to try hippotherapy.
Hippotherapy, as defined by the American Hippotherapy Association, is “a treatment that uses the multidimensional movement of the horse; from the Greek word “hippos” which means horse. Specially trained physical, occupational and speech therapists use this medical treatment for clients who have movement dysfunction.” They further describe some of the benefits: “Physically, hippotherapy can improve balance, posture, mobility and function. Hippotherapy may also affect psychological, cognitive, behavioral and communication functions for clients of all ages. Clients who may benefit from hippotherapy can have a variety of diagnoses: examples include Cerebral Palsy, Multiple Sclerosis, Developmental Delay, Traumatic Brain Injury, Stroke, Autism and Learning or Language Disabilities.”
Holly found a person locally that provides hippotherapy services. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like Tricare, our health insurance provider, covers hippotherapy in this region (we may still submit a claim), but Ben has been going all summer none the less. I had the pleasure of accompanying Ben to Hidden Creek Farm in Ruckersville, VA, for his session today. Outside of the obvious beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the background, it was really excited to see Ben doing so well in the therapy exercises and being completely comfortable on the horse. I’ve uploaded a video to Vimeo and some pictures to Flickr (see below).
After the new years while I was home nursing my shoulder after surgery, Ben was off to school and Anna was at preschool and we really wanted to take Gwen into town to enjoy the day. While drinking the morning coffee I was reading my Albemarle Family and came across the ad for the Little Gym. After a quick phone call I realized we could bring Gwen to what they called their “Little Beasts” program at 10:30 that morning for a free session!
Well Gwen loved it and she was just adorable. We researched their offerings and ended up signing up Gwen for the semester and also Anna into their combined ballet, tap-dance, and gymnastics program, conveniently timed between her getting out of preschool for the day and Ben’s bus getting home from school.
To end the semester, the Little Gym has show week where the kids get to show off what they’ve learned over the past few months. I was fortunate to have the day off of work for Memorial Day for show week and got to watch my girls! Ben got to come too but I think he spent most of the time playing on his Nintendo DS in the waiting area
As for the picture above, every week they bring the balls out and Gwen immediately runs and grabs the purple ones. God forbid you try to take one of Gwen’s purple balls.
For now, here are the pictures of show week. As I get some video up, I’ll update this post!
Well it’s official now; we have two elementary school students. The much anticipated first day of school has now come and we had quite a crowd at the end of our driveway. The reason…. our friends wanted to know if Holly was going to cry when Anna got on the bus to start kindergarten.
