Camping

A few weeks ago we met our dear friends the Baughers for some outdoor living fun. Since I am a high maintenance camper, we had to wait until it was no longer hotter than hell outside to camp. The Baughers have three wonderful young sons. Their middle child is the self professed "cool one," but any of their boys would make great matches for my girls someday!!

Our adventure led us to Nolin Lake State Park. At first, the dads had settled on a Jellystone campsite near Cave City, KY. After reviewing their selection and realizing it offered wifi, water slides and all kinds of other modern conveniences, I spoke up and said that maybe we should try looking for a place that was a bit more outdoorsy. Really I was worried that I would be too tempted to bring the laptop so I just said maybe we could find some place with at least a creek or something for the kids to play in. George searched and searched and found Nolin Lake. I have to give it two thumbs up. The only bad thing I can think of is that they had these giant street lights there that stayed on all night. But all in all it was a good place. We didn't do primitive camping; we did the kind where you bring your car and park it next to your tent. More on the car later.

This is what Eric had to do to keep me away from the smores.






We drove back to "civilization" on Saturday to go visit Dinosaur World in Cave City. No need to ever go back there but thanks to the Groupon, we checked that off our list.






The Baughers brought enough fishing poles for all of us. There was some fishing but not so much catching.







After changing clothes from the "fishing."



There were some tent shenanigans and some unauthorized mixed-sex wresting. I think the boys were very polite to have taken all the abuse from the girls. I don't think they had ever met girls like these before??!!! I'm just sayin'.


































We did lots of eating and lots of packing and unpacking because that is what you do when you go camping. We went on a hike on our last day. The kids did great. The trail was to a waterfall which had no water in it when we arrived but the kids managed to find some sludge to play in. After our hike, we finished up with a picnic lunch in front of the lake and a family vs. family scavenger hunt that was executed by Olivia.




(Above: Jacob is showing off the decomposing fish head he found down by the lake. Nathan also found some treasures by the shore also.)

Papa V even got in on the camping a little. He helped with the preparing and airing out of the tent the weekend he visited for the Steelers game. Maybe
that's where we got our good luck with the weather conditions.

Back to school

Our first day of school was last week. Meg was excited and a little nervous I think. She did well. Mom, on the other hand, is a little freaked out. More on that later. I will let some photos tell the story.





I usually take these photos outside with the flowers and trees but it has been so hot and humid here that the lense on my camera kept fogging up so it didn't work this time. That was a bummer.

Does this one look too much like a mug shot?

The infamous Mrs. McKinley


Olivia also had Mrs. Proctor in Kindergarten.




Look at my new pencil, Mom.



"I am all ready now, Mom. I have my new pencil behind my ear."



At her seat (alternately titled don't look at my chest)


Hugging goodbye (alternately titled thank God she covered her chest)


Notice Olivia's face at the end of the first day....this isn't the swimming pool is it?


Mom at lunch after the first day



Dad at lunch after the first day

Good fat

This is true love. Auntie Gina came to visit and Olivia was completely obsessed with making avocado face masks and having a "spa" day with her. So Aunt Gina did it!!! Meg watched nervously wondering why anyone would schmear all that gunk on their face. Will seized an opportunity and stole a cucumber (which covered one of "Ovee's" eyes) and ate it. Don't you wish you could have been here too?



Mouth full...


Making a run for it because he knew he was in trouble...

Worth repeating

So tonight Meg participated in her first ever swim meet (it was actually a practice meet but it seemed like the real thing). When we were snuggling before bed, I asked her what she thought of it. She said, "Well, you know mom, they should call it a swim race instead of a swim meet." I asked her what she meant. She said that she expected more people to be there talking (you know, meeting). I suppose it's true, at least from that five year old's perspective.

On another note, we are knee deep in Vacation Bible School this week. Dad is here visiting from Arizona and he has named it "Summer Bible Survival School." I also think this might be a more accurate moniker. Anyway...Meg is perfectly capable of reciting all the things she learned during the day. She gets it after only one try and spends the whole rest of the afternoon singing, humming or mumbling the words of the VBS song she learned that morning. George asked for the evening debrief yesterday and she described to him the snack they had. FYI the snacks are usually clever and tie in really neatly with the theme of the day (usually in a not so healthy way). I didn't hear the explanation about the snack but let's just say it consisted of a small bowl of m&ms, pretzels, mini marshmallows and some other unhealthy items. She told George how great the snack was. He told her that it was junk food. She asked him what people eat in heaven. He said he really wasn't sure what people ate in heaven. She said that it was junk food but they were learning about heaven and that the VBS people probably wanted them to know that in heaven you get to eat junk food so it was ok.

Good night. I am off to bed since I have three more days of Summer Bible Survival school left to teach.

Just checking to see if anyone is paying attention.

Don't be fooled by some of these photos.

Will enjoyed squeezing the eggs into oblivion this year more than dyeing them so he wasn't at the table long. In fact, the whole Easter Bunny portion of Easter went a lot like the Santa Claus portion of Christmas. Open one egg, eat the candy immediately and then move on to another egg (maybe) in search of the next piece of candy. He didn't care much about filling his basket. Olivia was the champion of that and Meg tried her best. These kids definitely like chocolate. I don't blame them.


Meg started out the week preceding Easter with a tally of seven YES SEVEN egg hunts on her calendar. I won't tell you if that was accomplished or not.




Squeezing the egg (above). Note expression. I hope your Easter was beautiful.

“Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time.” ~Martin Luther