August: Just the Facts...Trying to Catch up again!

There is no doubt that I've missed a ton of things since the middle/end of summer...so a few catch up items.

1. In August, Mason had knee surgery.  A little cyst on his knee that was rubbing against his IT band.  Not really that noteworthy except that I like him in his little hospital cap and gown :)

 

He was on crutches for a week, the cyst was benign and he milked it as much as he could for that recovery week.

2. In August we also managed to squeeze in one camping trip.  We had hoped to go more this summer but with soccer, surgeries, work, etc...it just didn't happen.  We headed up to Dillon State park for a Saturday night trip.  It was quick but we still had a lot of fun. It was MUCH closer quarters than what we were used to - that wasn't as cool.  Especially when the neighbor spouses started screaming at each other.

We used our new orange tent from Sam's that we got in the spring. Justin hates the tent.  and it's kinda awkward to get in and out of.  But I like orange. 

 Sitting around...

Bored and playing with the metal roasting skewers...probably not a good idea.

Family walk.  Nice way to end the superfast trip before heading home.

3. And then it was Back To School.  Wow, the summer flew by!

5th grade for Ella and 2nd grade for Silas.  

They are getting way too big...and beautiful/handsome.

As many times as I see this throughout the school year, I never tire of seeing them holding their daddy's hands walking to school.  

 

This will be Ella's last year at Darby Creek and that makes me VERY sad.  I love my munchkins being 2 minutes away from me during the day. I think it will be a big adjustment for both next year not being in the same school.

4.  And speaking of SCHOOL - Mason had his orientation at Capital in August (seems like a million years ago now).  Dad and Margie went with him and both loved being on campus with him and seeing all the school stuff with him!

And he officially became a College Student on August 26th - and I warned him that as long as he's living at home, he'll get 1st day of school pictures! (Same grouchy morning face that I've gotten since 6th grade!!).

So that is the short and sweet version of August!

September coming soon! :)

Camping (Part 2)

Back to our camping trip...we continue to talk about how much fun we had 2 weeks later.  We'd love to get another camping trip in this fall but with the soccer schedules, it will be hard to make happen!

We hiked on Saturday - went to Old Man's Cave.  It was beautiful but crowded.

I love this picture of Silas - big blue eyes and his toothless grin :)  And of course, another bug bite on his forehead!

 Managed to get a few pictures of the 3 together...that is very hard to do these days!

 

Silas was trapped between 2 rocks :)

 Ella and Silas in one of the caves

I love this picture of Silas but he looks like such a little man.  I asked him to smile and he gave me a pose too.

This was a strange little creature that buzzes around Tara and Steve's farm down in Logan.  We looked them up after getting home.  They are Hummingbird Bees which are actually a type of moth. Very neat to watch them fly around - their wings really make them look like little hummingbirds.

Mason needed a challenge while we were hanging at the campsite.  He climbed the big tree and then started trying to get one of the dead limbs down (the one jutting out on the right side of the tree he's in).

He ended up spending about 45 minutes with a rope (with a scrub brush tied to the end for weight) trying to lasso the branch and then pulling on it.  He did finally get it!

We took a little walk down by the river that ran beside the campgrounds.

The inside of the condo tent - Silas is burrowed down in the black sleeping bag.  Our 2nd night of sleeping was much more comfortable than the first night.  The air mattress lasted longer and it didn't get as chilly that night. 

After another yummy JP prepared breakfast, we started tearing down camp and packing up.  Amazing  how much stuff we had for just 2 nights! Seemed a lot harder to get it all back into the van!

Though we were all looking forward to getting home to a nice hot shower, we wanted to take the kids on another hike to Rockstall - the spot where we hike when we go on our couples' weekend.  It's beautiful and MUCH less crowded than Old Man's Cave.  In fact, we only saw one other person on this hike.  

Ella took this picture of me and Justin.  Yay!  I'm finally in a picture!  :)

 And a rare picture of me with all 3 kids!

Miss Boo taking a breather at we finish up the hike.

Here is a video of the kids swinging on the vine.

We had so much fun on this little camping adventure. It was great to get time with the kids, unplugged from the TV and Wii games. Can't wait to do it again!

Hell Has Frozen Over - Camping! (part 1)

We've been saying for the last 3+ years (since Si was potty trained) that NOW we can go camping...and each summer, we let the time slip away and didn't get around to it.  Well, NOT this year!  We finally made it happen!  And we had a fantastic time!!

I was a little worried at first - we left Friday afternoon and headed down to Hocking Hills.  Justin had put Mason in charge of researching and finding a place to reserve.  Mason found it, Justin booked it and I was not home so there was no verifying our purchase.

We pulled up to the Hocking Hills Livery and when Justin went in to check-in, he was told that "no, we don't book online"...so we traveled to the Hocking Valley Livery and yes - "you have a reservation but not here...it's at the Family FUN Center!".
Just the mention of the Family FUN Center made me immediately think of some National Lampoon's Family Vacation.  Long story short, we did finally make it to our camping spot, but like most of our vacations - it was off to a rocky start.

The campgrounds were a little rough.  We went in and made pulled around to the right without really driving around the site.  There was a spot that looked decent and we pulled in and started to unpack.  Luckily, Ella had to go to the bathroom so I walked her over to the porta johns.  We explored a little further up the road and discovered that the other side of the grounds were more "campy" - better canopy of trees, bigger sites - definitely cozier feeling.
I texted Justin and Mason and told them to come take a look.  Luckily they hadn't gotten the tent set up yet, and after some debating, we made the move to the new site.

Justin and Mason managed to set up the (borrowed) tent pretty quickly and WOW!
It was like a condo - we had a ton of space and could have added another 4 or 5 people pretty easily!

We spent Friday evening unpacking, hitting the grocery store and settling in. We made hot dogs, baked beans and of course: s'mores!  The kids were pretty wired and we spent the evening around the fire.

Silas lost his tooth that night too - of course!  He was concerned that the Tooth Fairy wouldn't be able to find us at the camp grounds but she managed to do just fine!

It was perfect camping weather - it got down to 52 that night and the fire felt great.  What didn't feel so great was the air mattress that deflated in the middle of the night so that Justin and I were totally on the hard ground - that was sucky.  Silas and Ella got pretty cold too and were curled like little potato bugs when I woke up at 5:30am.  I decided to go ahead and just get up and shortly after, Ella got up too.

Justin, always the Master breakfast maker, soon followed and whipped up a very yummy camp breakfast of eggs, sausage and potatoes. Only the mimosas were missing!

While breakfast was cooking, Ella and I walked the path to the river - it was chilly and quite sandy/muddy - they seem to be doing a lot of construction on the property - but the view was very pretty. The fog looked cool coming up off of the river.

to be continued...