Vacation Time



 

Our first glimpse of water.  The kids saw dolphins! (none pictured)

We set up camp and headed to the beach.  It was pulling teeth to get the kids to leave the beach every time!  We enjoyed a beautiful sunset the first night.

 



Going on a hike through the dunes.

This prayer reminded me of the Apple Tree kids book.  If you don't know what I'm talking about its a great book that makes you cry when you read it to your child.

We visited an Air Force museum. (Do you love #5 in his hat?)  The kids enjoyed all the aircraft and the weapons room, which I may have had the kids walk very quickly through.  The glass on the display cases said it had a very sensitive alarm, do not touch!  We made it through without setting off the alarm!  Yes!

 

 

 

Had to stop here, the boys have this in toy size at home.

 

 

 

 





 We buried sisters and cousins in the sand.

 

 

We played on a sand bar with a board.

 

I got tired of cooking in the pouring rain, so we had an easy and not so healthy dinner.  Of course it didn't rain then!

 

 last day pictures by the beach

 

 

Mom and daughter.

 

 

silly picture minus the wanderer.

 

 

 

Lots of fun, cranky, sandy, salty, splashn' good times.  Ended up leaving a few days early due to storms and flash flood advisories so there were friends we didn't get to see,  hikes we didn't get to climb and sunsets we missed but very grateful for all the memories we were able to make and look forward to more such times with my children.  Now to figure out how to put a camper size load into my minivan next year.  I think I may need one of those bottomless bags in the movies. :)

Down on the Farm

 

Last week we attended Freezer Camp.  We being, me and the older 3.  Where being the Grandparents house.  What is Freezer Camp?  It's when you take the Roosters shown above and you make them freezer ready.

 

A great helper. 

 16 birds are now in freezers to make bellies full at a later date.  I think our initial jump into this type of thing went rather well.  We all think we can do it again and had some fun humorous moments throughout. 

 

 

After freezer camp we were able to pick peaches.  We started out on the ground.  Then grandpa helped the girl reach some higher ones.  Then a couple chairs helped do the trick but the choice peaches seemed out of reach....

 

 

 

go big or go home

 

 

 

Lots of yummy goodness!



My July Firecrackers

 

13!  We celebrated with some zip lining adventures(which are stuck on my camera until I can download the pictures), time to talk about growing up and fun eats.  He loved the zip line, hugged and thanked my throughout the adventure :D woot woot  it was a win-win because I love zip lining too!

 

 

My little guy is 4!  He still loves Thomas the Train, and received his own Tball set-now he can play the big kids!  His food pick of the day was Taco's.  Such an easy person to please:)



Summer Fun in Missouri 2

 

We tried another hike, Pickle Springs if you are interested.  A fun 2 mile walk.

 

 

We found arches.

 

 

We found frogs.

 

 

We found lots of different yellow flowers along the trail.

 

 

 

#4 lost his 2 front teeth this summer.



Summer fun around Missouri

Elephant Rock is a place I remember loving as a child.  As an adult its more of a love hate.  Fun climbing, beautiful views but with children of my own, my nerves are on edge the whole time!  Some tame views of our adventure:)

 

We made it out with no injuries and only one minor hitch=  #4 got stuck between some rocks for a few minutes :)

 

Another place we visited was a Tiger Sanctuary.  Gorgeous Cats!

 

 

 

And Beautiful Views!

 

Summer pickings- Blueberries

Sister spent the weekend with her Aunt so it was just the boys at home.  What to do? Check out a local Blueberry farm.

 #3 & 4 hard at work.

 

 

#5 showing me his bucket, this is at the very beginning.

 

 

#1 and #3 were in a race to see who could fill their bucket first.  They didn't get to find out because the younger two didn't last that long but we did get to weigh each bucket at the end and #3 had the heaviest bucket!

 

 

Part of our haul, in all about 11 punds of blueberries.  I put lots in the freezer but have also made muffins, jelly and dessert with them.  *love*

 

They said blackberries will be ready soon, so may be going back for more harvesting! :)

 

In June

 I had more allergy testing.

 

The kids had fun in VBS, #1 was a helper this year.

 

My daughter had a fun time at camp with her friends.

 



 

The big boy in this picture celebrated  his 9th Birthday!  Sadly all pictures from that day were lost when my phone crashed that night.  But we had a fun day. In between packing #3 and mom got to play mini golf, eat shrimp, go on a hike and have a blizzard.  Great picks #3!!

 

 

 

#5 tried on his papa's eye wear.

 

 

#4 tried on some of his mom's makeup.

 

 

 

 

#4 got hit in the head, although it wasn't this branch we found it might have felt like that!  I'm hoping he understands how important it is to leave your hat on when playing ball now!  We found this branch on the ground after the hit in the head and the younger boys were then worried to walk under trees for a couple days.

 

This son turned 7!!

 

His picks of the day: Bowling, chocolate pancakes, grilled cheese and tomato soup, pizza!

 

 

Our last game of softball.

 

Many other things happened such as we moved and my dad(papa) was in the hospital much of June.  We now live closer to both sets of grandparents, have been working in the garden and plan to add to our chicken collection this summer.