The creek again

Today we got to go to the creek with a couple buddies.   Ariana, who has been in Kayda's class for several years, and her younger brother Gibson.  I took way too many pictures but I wasn't busy so I went with it! 

Kayda, Ariana and Gibson went on the rope swing.   Dillon wasn't t interested in the cold dunk at the end.

Praying Mantis

So, this is random but yesterday Daddy and I were giving my car a good cleaning.  When Daddy lifted one of the seats to clean under it he found a praying mantis!  We had seen one at Kayda's riding lesson a couple of months ago but before that I have no memory of ever seeing one in this area,  including as I was growing up here.  We all thought it was pretty cool! 

Mt Vernon

We ended up going on an extra camping trip with Uncle Pat and Aunt Sarah's family and Grandma Peggy and Papa Mike.  We headed up to the Mt Vernon area.  The tent "camp sites" were essentially along the perimeter of a huge field which worked out really nicely for the kids to play.  

Of course the day we headed up a burn ban was put in place so we didn't get to have a fire but the boys had a great time with charcoal "chalk".

 There was a cedar tree right by where we set up camp and Dillon spent more time there than anywhere else around camp. It reminded me of climbing around in the tree in my back yard growing up.  I must say cedar trees make the best climbing trees!

 This little scooter was Baba's!  Daddy drove around on it when he was growing up.  Uncle Pat ended up with it and the kids had SO much fun riding it.  Carson and I rode around the campground, it was quite the job to keep him from flooring it!

 On Saturday we headed up to Newhalem and spent the afternoon seeing the Diablo dam and a few other goodies. Carson was REALLY nervous about going across the bridge to the power house.  On the way back he was determined to do it on his own though.

 We were able to walk out on to the dam.  When you look down it is quite the drop!

 One afternoon Dillon and I got some good time together while the others were going swimming.  He had cut his toe and he didn't want to swim because it stung.

The day we were leaving turned out to be misty, overcast and cold.  The kids didn't want to swim so we ended up leaving a lot earlier than we had intended.  Unfortunately, this picture is blurry because we were driving and I kept bouncing around.  I thought it was too sweet NOT to post though!

Carson's 5th birthday!

Carson turned 5 this month!  Which means he can start kindergarten this year!  He is super excited though I'm apprehensive since he'll be one of the youngest kids.  What decided it was how much he wanted to be at school all day like brother and sister; he was SO bored without them!

Anyway.  We got to have Daddy's side of the family over to celebrate his birthday.  The plan was to swim and play outside but the weather didn't really cooperate.  They still had LOTS of fun inside! 

 We did his presents in the morning before Daddy headed to work.  Of course, because I told him we'd do that, he woke up really early!

That night we got to have dinner with Grandma Peggy and Grandma and Papa G.  I love how excited he is for his birthday!  He counted down for DAYS before it came!

A couple activities

Alright, I haven't done well keeping this up to date so we'll take a little trip to early August.  

The month started out with Kayda's activity day.  It was lego themed and had some really fun activities.  A favorite was making derby cars that the girls got to race on the pinewood derby tracks!  

 Kayda won!  They also got to race speedorz, decorate lego cookies, build bridges etc.

 The last 45 minutes of the day was family time so the boys got to play too!


Another day we made our way over to a local creek.  People have made a dam so there is an area that gets a pretty good pool for the kids to play in.  They had a great time exploring, floating and swinging from the bridge rope swing.

Carson tried the rope swing too but he wouldn't let go until brother went out to help him!


Besides South Dakota and camping it's actually been a really hard summer to get the kids to actually DO anything.  They have just wanted to be home. They've spent some time in the pool and sandbox but they have wanted to be inside playing with legos more than anything.  It's been really frustrating actually.  Unfortunately for them I'm dragging them out a bunch this week before school starts in just over a week!