Zoo

We snuck in one more zoo visit before our pass expired.  There were a bunch of new things we hadn't seen and the weather was perfect so it was one of our best trips.
Here's a photo dump of it all.  :)

Family Time

We've been enjoying our two weeks between the fair and school starting.  We've just stayed around home as well as spending three days at my parents doing all the school shopping plus I had a class one day.
Double Spider climb.

 Boy lunch tea party

 Girl lunch tea party

 Candy house made from parade candy

 Ninja warrioring outside

 Thomas shot the start gun

 Yup.  I got to compete too.  Guess if I beat Philip or not.

The kids have been playing for hours in the sand so I went out one day to see what was so fun.  They had obviously done this before.  They dragged over the hose and some cones and got to work.  Everyone claimed a lake and got busy digging.  Samuel had a huge pile in the middle that he dug the side out of, put in the hose and then rebuilt the side with the hose in it.  They turned on the water and his lake started filling up and he dug and reinforced and fixed collapses.  Once his lake filled it went through a cone to Thomas's where he busily worked similarly to Samuel.  His lake fed into Julia's whose fed into Philip's.  Philips ran down a river into the plastic turtle sand box.  Nicholas was assigned an "emergency lake" a little off to the side.  There must not have been an emergency because his didn't fill but he was happy as a clam.  It was quite the operation and they all worked together with no fighting.  Maybe if cleaning house involved a hose they could do that without fighting too.

This picture is chronological.

 Everyone's individual lake.

This makes summer look magical.   I'll just pretend no one ever fights.

Fair Time!

We enjoyed the fair as usual!  The kids and Jeremy started off by going to the rodeo.  I skipped it for the first time this year.  I don't know.  I just didn't feel like going.  If there are any pictures I don't have them yet.  ;)

Monday Thomas shot in the BB gun competition.  He had an off day and earned a red.  I had a class that day and missed it.  (Honestly though, you can't see how they're doing while they shoot anyway.)  He enjoyed himself anyway.

Tuesday we brought all our entries down to the fairgrounds.

Wednesday it poured rain all during the tractor driving contest.  (And the last kid out the van didn't close the van door.  And we didn't notice for an hour and a half.  Argh.)  Thankfully the contest is in a pavilion so we only got wet going to and from the van.
Thomas is still a junior competitor because of how 4H age works.  He earned a purple.
Samuel is an intermediate.  He did great backing up into the first stall but got hung up going into the second and earned a red.  He was happy though because he didn't come in last!
I guess the pictures of this are on Jeremy's phone too.  Great post so far, Lisa.  Don't worry.  It gets better.

Thursday was the parade.  The weather was great which always makes it more enjoyable!

We entered a lot in open class again, not quite as much as last year but 35 things or so.  Julia got Best of Lot on her Lego I Spy Village.  She built a village from sets that she had, some parts exactly by the directions some not.  Then she was asking me to find all sorts of stuff in the village so I suggested she make it an I Spy.  We think that probably pushed over the top to best of lot.  :)  She's very proud and will tell you about it in great detail if you ask.  I got Best of Lot for my White Chocolate Snickerdoodle bars.  That was fun.  Thomas got a first place on a Lego tow truck that he made and Samuel earned a blue on his cookies I believe.  We earned a smattering of blues and lots of reds.  Philip and Nicholas got Participation ribbons.

After looking at our ribbons Friday night the kids rode the rides.  Julia had coordinated with her friend Maddie so that they would be there at the same time and they had a blast riding together.  Samuel got to go back Saturday night with some friends too.  It was his first not at someone's house, unsupervised friend outing.

Overall it was a great fair week!

Blogging

I love my blog, I really do.  I love it's name.  I love watching the kids do something funny and wording my post in my head as it's happening.  I love how my seven blog books look on the shelf.  I love how the kids pour over them and read every story about themselves a hundred times a summer.  I love keeping a narrative of our family life together while they are growing up.  I know it is something we will treasure when the house is quiet; no longer full of their laughter and toys and fighting and mess.  For many years this blog was one of my major lifelines to the outside, adult world.  But I see it fading.  I hate the idea of Nicholas not getting his major events recorded like the bigger kids did.  I don't like how it's harder to blog about the big kids because they are big enough to have feelings about what I write that I need to think about and honor.  And I'm going back to work.
I think that someday I will click the "delete this blog" button.  I don't like the idea of leaving our personal lives hanging there when I'm not actively blogging any more.  I don't think that will be anytime soon but I don't know what exactly is going to happen to this blog.  I hope I can keep recording our lives here even if it is with much less frequency.  I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

A Few Days Away

We decided to take a little family vacation and stay at a state park in cabins for a few days last week.  I went with my family lots of times as a kid.  Some things were exactly the same and some have been updated.  We stayed in camper cabins so air conditioning but no bathroom or kitchenette.  There was a bath house across the yard (and up a steep hill, but everything there is on an incline).  I totally knew there was no bathroom or kitchenette but my brain did not put together that also meant no sink at all so we had to improvise on water a little.

We climbed the tower twice on the first day.  Once when we got there and once to watch the sunset.

We had fun around the cabin especially with campfires.  Those are smore cones!  Philip and Nicholas befriended a park worker who we kept seeing around the park.  His name was Logan and they must have had an extended conversation at the swing set the first day we were there.  It turned out to be great because we locked our cabin key inside during lunch the following day.  After Jeremy and Samuel set out on their bikes to go to the office, who shows up to do some work around our cabin but Logan.  Nicholas pipes up to tell him, "We are locked out of our cabin!" "Yep," Philip agreed, "our key has gone missing!" (It hadn't, it was inside.)  "Oh," said Logan the friendly park worker, "I can let you in if you want."  Um, yes.  I do want!  So he let us in and I drove to find Jeremy and Samuel before they came all the way back with the office key.  Philip friendliness pays off!  And even my not-so-friendly Nicholas was in on it!

On Wednesday we did some paddle boating.  Always a hit.  They do still have some of the paddle boats that I remember paddling in as a child but we chose shiny new ones.  :)

We fed the fish and ducks while we were at the marina.  We found a few hungry catfish in the shade.  Research project:  Do catfish have bad eyesight?  It took them a few tries to get the food we were throwing!

The park has done lots work on the creek that feeds the paddle boat lake.  There are about four small ponds going down an incline that lead to the lake.  The kids had lots of fun seeing if their stick boats could make it down the rocks to the next pond.

 A trip to the craft hut.  I don't remember this being outdoors.  Each kid painted a ceramic which they will enter in open class at the fair.  I probably have a state park ceramic somewhere in my childhood things....

We hiked and made it to the falls!  I remember always seeing the sign that said "Falls" with an arrow but I never remember making it all the way to the falls.  To my ten year old legs it was way too far.  Also, it was the 80s.  We were allowed to hike without the adults and I was a scardy cat which may have contributed to us never making it to the falls.

We headed to a nearby trail head and biked on a really nice path.  Even Nicholas could bike it even though it's crushed rock.  He biked like a champ and kept up with us really well.  We made it to the bridge across the river where we encountered this closed sign.  Which we then ignored.  It looked like they'd done some cement work on the other side and hadn't taken down the barrier yet although the cement was dry.

We ran into my Aunt Carol and Uncle Larry who were also staying at the park and celebrating their 35th anniversary.  We joined them and their grandkids for smores and margaritas after our bike ride which was fun.  The kids enjoyed playing with their cousins.

The next day we went to the safari park and had fun seeing the animals there.  It's much more elaborate than I imagined.

When we got back from the safari Nicholas crashed.  He hadn't been feeling great all day and needed a nap.  Jeremy took the big kids swimming and Nick and I stayed in the air conditioning.  When Nick woke up he still didn't feel great but was sad he'd missed swimming.  We decided the cool pool would do him good so I took him swimming and the big kids went to the shooting range.  Samuel and Thomas shot rifles (I think) and Julia and Philip did archery and sling shots.

After dinner Nicholas said he thought he might throw up so he and I packed up and headed home a night early.  He never did throw up but it took him all of Friday to really recover from whatever he had.  Not sure if it was a bug or heat exhaustion.

Jeremy and the kids stayed he night as planned, had a campfire, took another bike ride, stopped by the nature center where Philip held this baby fox snake which he has told me about multiple times, packed up, stopped at a steakhouse out in the country for lunch and headed home.

 The closest we got to a family picture:

It was fun but next time we're going to try to get our act together early enough to get "modern" cabins!  (Those have plumbing!)  And maybe order some weather below 90 degrees!

Leadership Camp

The big boys attended leadership camp and had a wonderful time.  I'll have to steal some more pics off FB later.

Retired!

As I am coming out of retirement ;) my dad is starting his.  After 37 years at the VDC he happily retired at the end of June.  We had a big, fun party.  Two big fun parties actually.  Congrats, Dad!

My Grandpa Roy retired from the same organization (basically).  When he died our family donated a big round stained glass window for the building that he worked in as a memorial for him.  The window became a symbol for the organization.  Now it's etched in the glass at the brand new building being built where my dad worked too. Here's our whole family in front of the etching. I believe ten of the 15 adults were all affiliated with the organization at some time in their life.  (I know....a little bit cryptic but internet safety and all that.)

We gave Grandpa Mike some appropriate retirement clothes.  Grandma Susan can't wait for him to wear them.