Tribe Adventure

 It has become a tradition that during senior year, the kids get to invite their closest friends (with their families) to come on an adventure up into the tribe with us. Now it's Ben's turn, and he was excited to get to show his friends some of his favorite places. Sadly, the "house in the clouds" is no more, and the place we tried to stay instead didn't go so great (loooong story), but we still had a great time with some great people. Our group was 4 families, and included my sister and her family.

Part of the tradition of going at Christmas time is creating the "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree. This tribal area is one of the few in the country that has pine trees, so the kids found a pine branch, then decorated it with random things they found around.

Lots of pretty views up there!

The adults had fun too. Great group of people!

Lots of time spent at the river. Cooking hotdogs, swimming and yes even jumping off the bridge! 

The kids enjoy riding in the pick up truck bed and on the roof rack when we're not on "real" roads.

Watching Eli try to rock climb the opposite side. He didn't make it and ended up wet.

And of course Ben always wants to make it more of an adventure...he smacked his head on a low-hanging tin roof. Lost lot of blood (head wounds!) and there was so much nasty dirt up under the skin that it took a LOT of digging to try to get it clean. He didn't flinch, but ultimately ended up too much for his body, and he passed out, couldn't see, and had this seizure kind of thing. Thankfully his body recovered pretty quickly from going into shock, and we glued the cut back together once we were sure it was cleaned out. When we got down out of the mountains, we called and spoke with a neurologist friend; the seizure was a "neurological event" caused by the trauma. He was on concussion protocols for a week but healed up fine. And thankfully no infection in the cut, and getting a tetanus shot in the little provincial hospital ER was a piece of cake, and only cost us about $2.50 total. Just like the States, right? :) 

So it ended up more of an adventure than we expected, but Ben healed up just fine (complete with cool zigzag scar!), and we all had a great time in the mountains with family & friends who have become family.