Wonders of Water

It's nearly 1:00 in the morning and although I should be headed to bed, I'm determined to break the blogging silence.  I have lots of great things to talk about, including a camping trip, a visit from Uncle Lance, and Eli's birthday.  For tonight however, I'm limiting the conversation to a hike that we took during our Labor Day weekend at Lake Icaria.

We weren't headed particularly far, nor was our route particularly demanding.  Still, if you look very closely, you'll see that I'm biting my lip in this picture, wondering whether or not the kids can handle the journey.

You see, instead of hiking with a water bottle, each one of the munchkins toted a bucket full of lake water.  Brooklyn was working on a Brownie award where the girls gain appreciation for running water.

They quickly discovered that the buckets were easiest to tote on their heads.  (They also learned how easily they splosh.)

I was initially concerned that I would have to listen to them whine the entire time, but they took their jobs seriously and generally had a good attitude.  

Going up and down the stairs, I think they became particularly grateful for the chance to get an education instead of staying home to tote water all day.

Here's a video of the family in action.

And here's a video of the soggy finale.  The kids were eager to turn their hike into an "ice bucket" challenge of their own.  The video was too long to post in its entirety, so here's the message that Brooklyn shared.

This is the ice bucket challenge.  Me and my sister and brother have just been carrying water about a mile, which is a lot less than they do in Africa.  We've been doing this for a Girl Scout award for me, but we'd also like to do this for our great-Uncle Jay.  This isn't exactly ice water--it's lake water.

Nominations, and then the dump!

My favorite parts of the video are Eli's nervous habit (wedding day blackmail) and the tiny pink speck that comes wandering along in the background (that's when Annie decided to rejoin us instead of continuing her solitary journey through the woods.)

Guiding Brooklyn through this "Wonders of Water" Brownie journey was good practice for me since I recently agreed to lead Talia's troop.  Life is always full of new adventures!