Thursday, March 26, 2009

Spring Break @ Huntsville State Park

Get ready, this is super llllooooonnnnngggg!!!!
Mathew 2-23-09 - My Spring Brack.
On my Spring Brack my family went to Hunsfill state park. I went fishing We did not ketch anything. We all so went on my Dad's kannoow. On the kannoow ride we sall a Aligater We went closer and closer to it. My Mom toock a picture of the aligater. My Mom was sacrd and so was My sister Rachel. To me it was awsome. At night we had smores. The next day we went on a highk. It was cool a little. My Mom cep on tackeing pickturs of me. I like it We sall a blueming tree. We also toock picher of it. The flower were Wite whith yellow in the middle. After that we went on the ckannoow. This time it was me, Ethan and my Dad. We went fishing on it. We didnt' ketch any thing. My brother wanted to ketch some thing. He did not car about what size it is He just wanted to ketch a fish. then we went in are tent
{I thought Matthew's words were perfect for our Spring Break Post.}
Here we are, all six of us, in the canoe and what do we see just ahead of us.......?
Yes, it is an alligator. This is about as close as I would let Steve get us.

This picture is just a close up but not personal.





Wet bottoms after the canoe ride...
But still happy children.

Our Camp Site



Last year we took our tent, which looked like this one below on the Youth Pioneer Trek and when we returned home we set it out to dry while we went to San Antonio to pick up our kids. When we got home it had flown away and we have never seen it since, until we went camping and found it. Okay, one just like it.

But had it not flown away we would never have had this bigger and better tent.

Our dinner the first night was delicious and Steve just made it all up. I am thinking you almost can't go wrong with a dutch oven, chicken, carrots, potatoes, mushrooms, bacon and some elbow grease from the kids.




Steve and his masterpiece

The best part about camping is the SMORES.



Ethan built a good tee pee fire and we had to make due with sticks and tongs for our marshmallow skewers since I left our real ones at home.




Fun Bed Time in the Tent. We played a lot of 20 questions.
This is what you look like in the morning after you were freezing all night long. Only I was cold. I left my warm sleeping bag at home, so we stopped at Target to get a new one that we thought Ethan could use for scouts and it turns out it was extremely light but not very warm.

Nothing like some nice hot chocolate, or in Ethan's case hot apple cider, on a nice crisp cold morning.



Rachel is making our breakfast for us, breakfast burritos with hashbrowns & bacon, yum yum!

Just a few hiking pictures...

The tree with the blooming white flowers that Matthew liked.

The arrowhead leaf

Ethan spent every spare second he had fishing, which is a lot when you are camping.

While Ethan was fishing he got his hook and bobber stuck in this tree, so the canoers retrieved them.

Here I am with my contribution to our dinner the second night, dutch oven peach cobbler.

Some Girl Time



Lauren found this treasure on one of our hikes.
The Game of Horseshoe
Our two ringers for the day.
Rachel plays Horseshoe just like she bowls. And she gets turkeys all the time.


Time to pack up and go home, we had such great little helpers. It made for a wonderful time camping.


The ride home, check out those filthy feet, Yikes!
Yes, it was worth it. Night Night!!



Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Wordless Wednesday


Okay, so not really wordless. Yes, Ethan is almost 11. He is actually cleaning up a mess. He left a red ball point pen in the pocket of his shorts, which in turn got left all over the dryer. Thankfully I was able to get it out of all the clothes. They hadn't dried all the way when I discovered what had happened.

This reminds me of a Christmas when I was in Junior High. I didn't have many clothes back then and what I did have probably all came from garage sales. Well, I got this really nice shirt with a rainbow on the front of it for Christmas and one of my brothers put a crayon in the dryer and it ruined my new shirt. I never even got to wear to school. Oh, the things we remember.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Emma Rose Baby Blessing

We are so glad we live close enough (5hrs) to family that we are able to be a part of some of these special occasions. Darrin gave a beautiful blessing to Emma. And of course there was a fabulous feast afterwards with all the family and friends. Here are all the pictures we took of Emma during our visit. This was our first time to meet her. She is already 3 months old (born December 19) and is a cutie and oh so sweet.

I think all the grandkids have their fingers wrapped around Grandpa's pinkie.







Not quite sure why we let him do this....