Camping

We decided to end our summer with a family camping trip.  We had never been camping by ourselves - we had only gone with my family.  My dad loves camping and has all the stuff - so we had never really purchased anything for it.  I spent most of the summer buying sleeping bags and chairs and other camping stuff at garage sales.  In the end we had to borrow a few things (like a tent).  We found a beautiful camp site about 2 hours away.  

Helping set up the tent.

Building a fire

The kids were very interested in the fire and would report to Jason when it would start to go out.

Can't go camping with our smores

We played card games, read Narnia (our current chapter book), played catch, went hiking, and sat around the fire.
We had a ton of wild flowers growing all over our camp site and I think Madison took it as a personal challenge to see how many she could pick.

Our first camping trip was wonderful.  The kids were well behaved, everything worked, the weather was nice.  The only downfall was that I forgot the pillows!  So...a few of us did not sleep well - but we only stayed one night so it wasn't too big of a deal.  But next time I will definitely remember the pillows!

I want to give a shout out to Jason.  It might be an understatement to say Jason does not love camping - but I do.  He never wanted to camp with a baby - but always said once our kids were old enough we would try it.  It went well enough that we are going to buy the rest of our stuff for Christmas and go every year now.  He is so sweet - it is a lot of hard work for him and am grateful he is willing to take us/me camping!

Also - I wanted to give one more observation.  Other than girls camp I had never been camping with out my dad.  Which is something I had never realized or thought made a difference.  I realized that it SO had.  In my mind there are things that are done camping a certain way because that is how my dad did it.  The most tangible example of this was in the morning.  Camping is weird because you never really know what time it is when you wake up because it gets light and  the birds start chirping at like 4:30 am.  So you never really know what time to get out of your tent.  I was laying in the tent and I realized that I always knew it was time to get up when I would hear my dad outside at the fire or picnic table fiddling around with stuff.  He was usually starting the fire, or playing around with his fishing poles and flys or in my older years even doing some work.  I realized what a comforting sound that was to me.  I was laying there in the tent and desperately wanted to hear my dad outside fiddling around with stuff.  I love that my parents took me camping.  I only knew what to do because I watched them do it every single year my entire life.  So many of my favorite childhood memories and even some profound  life moments happened while camping.  In my early teen years I would go out "hiking" by myself (walking around the camp grounds) and would "think" - I took journals and sat at over looks and felt the spirit and learned about God and His creations.  The Spirit of God is in the mountains - and I know that because my mother and father took me there often.  Thank you.

End of Summer Sleep Over

We had an end of summer sleep over with our neighbors.  They have a boy the boys' age and a girls' the girls' age - so it was perfect!  We love having them as neighbors and all the kids get along really well.  We haven't really "done" sleepovers yet and I hadn't really made up my mind about them.  I grew up on sleepovers and loved them!  But I still felt unsure about my own kids (isn't that how it always works).  Ultimately we decided it was an experience we wanted our kids to have.  Since then we have had a few more.

We started our evening by riding our bikes and scooters to a local park.  The girls played on the play ground and the boys rode around at the skate park.

At then end of the night a few kids really wanted pictures "hanging from stuff".  Weird

The boys stayed up way too late playing mine-craft (10 o'clock)  and we set up a tent in the girls room for the girls to sleep in.  They all slept great.

In the morning we played some more then I took them to a local park to clean up some garbage and then to McDonald's for an ice cream cone.

Our bag of garbage.

It was a lot of fun and a great first sleep over.

Bowling With Friends

Another one of our bowling trips.  Noah wasn't with us - he was at a play date.  I took 3 of our friends with us.  

Brock, Finn, and Aiden

Megan, Madison, and Zoe

Dinosaur Ridge

I am not a good enough writer to adequately express to you the disaster of this outing.  But I will try.  My friend took Noah one day to a place called, "Dinosaur Ridge".  He loved it.  He really wanted to go back because they didn't make it all the way to the dinosaur bones - they only saw the footprints.  I found out that it was free and my friend said, "you totally should go and take the kids they would love it."  I didn't do much more research beyond that.  Fail.

We got there - I parked in the wrong place adding about 1/2 a mile to our hike.  We were hiking up the side of a mountain, literally - like a 45% incline - straight up, on blacktop, no shade, on about a 100 degree day.  I only brought one water bottle.  The biggest mistake is that I had previously promised Noah we would make it to the top where the bones were (the footprints were only half way up).  About 50 yards past the footprints the girls were a mess of tears and discouragement.  They were done - done, done.  They could not go any further and we were out of water.  But Noah - he HAD to keep going.  Brock was pretty indifferent.  We decided to start heading back down - there was NO WAY we were going to make it all the way up and back.   Once we got back to the foot prints there was a tour bus getting off.  The bus driver was a woman who looked nice enough.  I told her of our plight - she agreed to let us ride the rest of the way up and down.  I am so grateful she took pity on a poor, overwhelmed, under-prepared mother and her children.

Woo-Hoo - we are one the bus!

Don't we look hot.  Why oh why were the girls in pants - I forgot that detail.  I think the morning was kind of overcast.

This is a dinosaur femur.

At the end of the day it was fun (ish) and the kids were glad we went.  I guess that's a win.

Cave Hike

One summer Saturday we went on a hike to a cave.  Well, that is what we thought.  We did the research, got a map at the front, paid our dues for the park - no signs, no warnings.  As we started up the mountain the trail disappeared  as we crawled over large boulders- strange.  We kept going... no cave... no trail... no signs or markers.  Turns out the trail had been destroyed by a rock slide.  Eventually we found the cave, kind of my accident.  

Bowling

The kids got passes from school for free bowling all summer long.  We tried to go once a week or so.  They got to be pretty good bowlers.  Every once in a while the kids would decide to spend their chore money on a treat for the family - how generous!

It was kind of strange because when I took the kids by myself in the afternoons I wouldn't bowl.  But they are all independent so I was just sitting on the benches cheering them on while they all bowled for an hour or so.  I probably could have brought a book.  It was an odd feeling.  In the next 5 years I will probably be just dropping them off and picking them back up. - For now I will enjoy this.

Our first game was pretty awesome - Noah won with an 82, then Megan at 75, Brock and 72 and Madison at 66.  One time Madison actually won!

We went by ourselves during the day, took some friends sometimes, and went as a family in the evenings.  It was the summer of bowling I guess.