Upward and Onward

Last week was my last week at Equinox as their designer, they threw a little surprise going away party for Molly and I and gave me a custom made hiking stick to take on my adventures at La Vida. It was very sweet of them and I felt very blessed to have had a chance to work and learn there.  As much as I was sad to leave, I am very excited for what lies ahead for me.

Molly asleep on the climbing gym couch
- all the long days there are tiring her out!

 This week I am helping the local climbing gym: Milton Rock Gym run while the owners are on a 10 day trip to the Red in Kentucky. I get to run the gym  and house sit for them in their "awesome-log-cabin-house-tucked-away-in-the-middle-of-the-woods" while they are gone:) Its been my first time climbing in months and i can't tell you how depressing it is to see how much strength I have lost, but also how amazing and refreshing it feels to be back to it. Yesterday it was pretty slow for the last 2 hours so I started climbing with some of the regular members. It's hard to describe how climbing again makes me feel, but I felt like the "real KB" was back, this is who I really am, this is my element, this is where I feel truly alive, pushing myself to get to my goals- however big or small they are, feeling exhausted but invigorated at the end of the day, letting everything else go in my mind and just focusing on the climb-how to move my body to use the least amount of strength to get to the top- how to tackle the specific moves and problems directly in front of me- just to push myself and see what happens, climbing and laughing with good people, I felt like I was "at home", like I was back to where I am supposed to be, and dang does it feel good. Even though I will only be here for a week and wont be able to climb on a regular basis this summer again because of La Vida, I am happy for the week I get to climb and be surrounded by something I absolutely love.


May 7th I will be off to Ohio to visit my family and some friends I haven't seen in a year, and then on the 15th off to Boston/New York to start another summer with La Vida. I couldn't be more excited about either of those trips:)

As for the fall, it's all a mystery to me right now, I've prayed about it a lot and God's answer has been to trust and wait for God to open the doors when he wants me to start thinking about it.

As I have been packing up all my stuff from the Berwick house I have been thinking of all the things that I have done/learned here, and it makes me feel really accomplished and happy about the adventure here - even if it was hard at times - good things did happen here.

heres my list of what I learned:

I (slightly) learned how to cook
pretty extensively how to sew(all I did at work it felt like)
how to use a chainsaw
how to shoot a "22", some hand guns and a assault riffle:)
how to be patient in Molly's training
to give myself rest when I need it
how to study the Bible at the depth I was searching for
how to Kayak
I learned how to Stand Up Paddle Board

and so many more things but these are just some of the first that came to my head - I'm sure as I process more this next week as I get ready to officially leave this place I will see even more things that I have learned here. I love learning, especially things that you don't expect yourself to learn but God had you learn them anyways.