Priceless and Pricey.....

We'll start with the priceless:

Water balloons at Wal-Mar: $2.50
1 hour bending over a spicket to fill them up: painful
tieing 120+ waterballoons: excurciating!

Giggles and screams from 6 boyz as they soak daddy when he comes home from work: PRICELESS!




Now onto the pricey......OK so it's no too pricey, but more than $2.50. Our family LOVES to go camping. For the last 8 years we have been using a 1972 Coleman camper that my grandparents bought new, passed on to my parents, who passed it onto us. So 4 generations have slept in this tent trailer. Well, when we went camping a few weeks ago, I knew we wouldn't all fit. In fact, for the alst year I have been keeping a eye out on something that would sleep our entire family. Not very easy to find! (Well, under $16,000!) I can't stand the thought of some of my boyz (at this young age) sleeping in a tent. I have raed too many stories of the side of the tent being cut and children being kidnapped. Anyhow, I found a trailer a few weeks ago that sleeps 9! It's older (2001) so it is about 1/2 the price of the other trailers we have been seeing. Here she is:

This is what you immediately walk into - the kitchen with an oven, stove, NICE double sink, microwave and FRIDGE & FREEZER! ICE CREAM FOR DUTCH OVEN COBBLER! YAY!

To the left is the living area. The 6' slide out holds the couch which folds down. The table, of course, folds down.

The triple bunk beds!

The bathroom with a MINI TUB and shower. VERY nice!

To the left (front of the trailer) of the kitchen is a bedroom with this queen size bed. We slept in it the night we got it, so we made the bed up.

There is storage everywhere! We are so excited and hope we can get the title and registration by August 13th so we can take it out for a night! That's another perk! We can just go for 1 or 2 nights! The other tent trailer was such a struggle to put up it wasn't worth it! YAY! Dirt and bugs.....here we come!

Camping at Grover Hot Springs

So last week we headed off to Grover Hot Springs, CA. It was so much fun and beautiful. We set up camp and immediately went exploring. The kids all round walking sticks and were pretending to be old men.


Beautiful views.....


Sammy walking with daddy who looks like he already has a headache! :-)

Bryce made a bow out of grass and a piece of wood.

We found some snake grass and Sammy is rubbing it together.

We hiked up to some waterfalls and played in the water.

It felt really good on our feet.


We found this rock with the a tree growing right out of the top of it! AMAZING! Grow where you are planted!


So Davis K gave the boyz this idea to keep cool on their heads cool on the hike! It was a big hit! They dipped them in the creek when we got to the first one. This was a beautiful hike! Travis and Melissa came down and did it with us. There were a TON of mosquitos! That was the only miserable thing!



Lake Margaret....our destination. It was 2.5 miles out.....and 2.5 miles back.....the boyz did really good!

Beautiful spring flowers.....

And cute Sammy crossing creeks!

This was Bryce's impersonation of a tree to catch the squirrels and chipmunks. He was hilarious! We had to be quiet so that he attract the animals!

This was the cutest animal we saw......Daniel with his 'reindeer antlers'.

We had a fun time! We love to go camping! So that catches us up for the summer so far. We have been swimming and hiking a lot. Kids taking swim lessons, going to the library.....school starts in 3 weeks. We have a wedding and family reunion this weekend and then Kevin starts school next week! :-( Almost time for a routine again. Hope your summer is going great!

Catching up on 4th of July weekend

So 4th of July weekend we went hiking at by South Tahoe at Emerald Bay. It was SO beautiful! It was about 5 pm when we got there, so the trees were hiding any light. So the pictures are kindof shadowy. I relaly need to learn to use all the gadgets on it. These tree roots were really cool.

The background is Emerald Bay with Tahoe in the farther background.

You could walk right up to the falls and feel the water splash on your.

Beautiful water falls!

PLaying in the FREEZING water!




Waiting for the fireworks to start.


Playing some croquet.

The cute patriotic flip flops we made. I made my first attempt making tye died shirts and you can see that some of the boyz wearing theirs. Didn't turn out as great as they should. Oh well!

Catching up on June

So, there are a few things in June that I haven't blogged. Here is a picture of my 3 cub scouts. Ryan is a Webelos, Comptyn a Bear and Bryce a Wolf.

So Father's Day happened in June and I didn't even pay tribute to the boyz' wonderful father! In Kevin's office hangs 6 frames that the kids periodically will paint something different and replace the old ones. This year it looks like they all just mixed the paints to see what color brown they could get! Oh well....daddy loves them!

I took the boyz over to a little waterfall in Carson City and took some pictures for Kevin. That is a tradition. These are not the ones that we gave Kevin. But they give an idea. Here is the group......these are always interesting.....never 6 for 6 of boyz looking at the camera!

Sammy

Daniel

Nathan

Bryce

Comptyn

Ryan

Our Comptyn had his 9th birthday in June, too! His favorite and most prized possession is the Wii Star Wars Lego game. Our kids have to earn coupons to play on thw Wii. So he has been working hard all summer to earn coupons to play that game.

He requested Strawberry Shortcake for his cake. It was really a great idea! Can never go wrong with strawberry shortcake!

And he also wanted to play croquet. All in all he had a great day! He's a great boy always helpful and kind. He has his little impish boy moments, but they are getting fewer and fewer. We love you, Comptyn! And are so glad you are party of our family!

Bryce's legs

So we have had such a busy and fun summer, I haven't posted anything we have done! I have a TON of pictures to upload, so we'll see if I can catch up today. So Bryce has been having some feet/leg issues. If you look at his legs they don't line up right with his feet. He is VERY flat footed and so we are hoping that is the only problem. Arches can fix that. If there is some other issues we will belooking at other solutions. There are some diformalities that his pediatrician talked about as worse case scenarios. So on Aug 25th he will be seeing an pediatric orthapedic (sp?) doctor in Reno! So we'll see what he has to say! Hope you are all having great summers! Hopefully I'll have more later today! :-)

Today's Inspirational Lesson

This was sent to me by email....it was so funny I had to share!



Today's Inspirational Lesson:

Never irriate a woman who can operate a backhoe!



Thus endeth the lesson.

Women are Angels...And when someone breaks our wings...We simply continue to fly...on a broomstick...We are flexible like that!

Party for Jennifer Johnson & Family

So Jennifer Johnson and her family are moving back east next month. We are going to have a party at her house, 455 Carson River, on Saturday, July 17th at 5:30. It will be a potluck. Bring a chair or blanket to sit on. I will be providing the drinks and dishes. Let anyone know that you can think of that would like to say goodbye to their family.