Rancho Canabrava

We took our three youngest kids to Rancho Canabrava yesterday, just outside of Brasilia.  We went with a bunch of embassy families and the kids had a blast doing an obstacle course a zillion feet off the ground.  There were tears of fear and sick stomachs from the girls when they started, but once they got past the first part, they loved it.  Mitch went with the girls, and Henry went with his buddies. I stayed on the ground (still in recovery mode), cursing my lack of Xanax. 

Thankfully, there was a puppy to help calm the nerves.

Henry handled the height like a champ.



Zipline to the finish!




The girls are grimace-smiling.  Both were scared, but insisted they wanted to do the adult course instead of the kids' course. And because in Brazil, kids get what they want, so they had extra guides to help them along. The workers at the ranch were amazing. Some spoke English, and they were wonderful with the kids. 



They're both smiling in these photos because this is the practice one to teach them how to clip their carabiners to the wires, and it was pretty easy.



Hole. E. Shit.



She kept it together.



This is where Olivia burst into tears. I wanted to shout to the guides to help her get down, but Mitch yelled at her, "Look straight ahead, stop crying, and just take one step at a time!", in what I thought was a pretty mean voice.  Just saying. However, it worked, and once she got over the initial fear, she loved it. I had to go away for a while at this point and take a lot of deep breaths and ask around if anyone had a flask.

This nine year-old was once inside my body.

Everyone wants to go back and bring Jack (who was home buried under schoolwork) next time. On the way home, the girls were wondering why there isn't cool dangerous stuff like that back in the States for kids to do, but then they decided theme parks were pretty cool, too.   I'm pretty sure I deserve some sort of award for keeping my shit together while my kids were merely a missed carabiner clip away from breaking their necks. Also, I got a sunburn.