Camping 2015

We only fit in two camping trips this year.  It’s at that point when we question if it’s worth it to own the camper!  The kids overheard us talking, and they are horrified at the thought of selling the camper.  So for now, it stays.  We’ll see how often it gets used next year, and then bring up the discussion again.

Our first camping trip was a rather wet trip to a campground in Bristol, IN called Eby’s Pines.  My brother’s family loves that campground, so we thought we would give it a try.  We had a nice weekend, but the weather kept it from being a great weekend.  I hope we can try again next year!

Our second trip was close to home, as Max had a soccer game that weekend.  It was hot, but the only rain came during the night, so that was nice!  We enjoyed the campground, cooled off in the lake, left for Max’s soccer game and an air-conditioned lunch at McDonalds, and then headed back to the campground to jump in the lake again.

Here’s a random assortment of pictures from our second trip. I don’t think I took many pictures on the first trip because of the rain.  These are all cell phone pictures, so the quality is nothing great…

LOTS of time at the beach, which was perfect for the hot weather!  It’s so nice that the boys can both swim decently enough that they don’t need floaties.

Using a pool noodle, filled with water, to spray water all over






Obstacle Course at the campground

obstacle course at the campground


roasting marshmallows



We have a great debate over the best way to roast marshmallows.
Daddy and the boys like to set them on fire and eat blackened s’mores.
Mommy likes them lightly and evenly toasted.
Jensyn likes them slightly melty, but still white.


The boys had a great time biking down this hill, over and over again.
I think Daddy is the one in this picture, but it’s hard to get a picture of a blur of bikes!


Every Saturday night, this campground has a “Gotta Glow To Go” wagon ride around the campground.  Kids (and parents, if you’d like) parade around the campground on a tractor-pulled wagon.  Campers wave and cheer as the kids come by, and many of the seasonal sites have special light shows on their campers.  It’s fun!  We do this every year!  This year’s ride was super-speedy.  I still enjoyed it, but it was almost scary-fast this year!

Our campsite neighbors were the BEST!  They were two adult couples, both of whom have older children that did not come along on this trip.  They had three dogs, and our children adored the dogs.  We couldn’t keep our kids away, and these sweet couples were SOOOO good to our kids.  They even came out to wave to our kiddos on the glow ride route.



Alex fell asleep wearing his glowing glasses.  He slept this way all night.
I know the picture didn’t turn out, but it is still hilarious, and I want to remember it!

January Photo Dump (and a RAK !)

What?!  It’s February 3rd, and I’m posting the January photo dump already?!  Wow.  Don’t worry – it won’t happen again.  You’ll probably have to wait until May to see the February pictures, ha ha!

We haven’t taken the kids bowling in a very long time,
so it was about time to go again…


Alex refused to use the ball ramp, so his score was lower than Max or Jensyn. 
That annoyed him, and he refused to recognize that their scores were higher because
they were using the ball roller.  He was very frustrated.  Everyone else had fun, though!


Birthday party fun

Crazy Lego creations – Alex specifically asked me to take & post this picture.

cousins…boy, do we love this happy little guy!
(And Jensyn, in case you ever wonder, you’re going through a phase
where  you don’t want to match.  I did NOT dress you like this, I promise!)

Now, for the Random Act of Kindness that caught us totally off guard…

After Alex’s Upward game on Saturday morning (31st),  Keith suggested that we go to Steak & Shake and an indoor fun center.  The forecast called for HEAVY snow on Saturday night and Sunday, so he thought it might be nice to get out of the house for the day since we’d likely be spending the next few days at home. 

At Steak & Shake, a lady (around 60ish?) was sitting alone across the aisle from us.  I kept catching her smiling as she watched our kiddos.  When she finished her meal, she got up & stopped by our table for just a moment to say that we had a beautiful family.  We smiled, thanked her, and she went on her way.

20 minutes later, as Keith is pulling out the coupons and getting ready to pay, the waitress walked up and said, “Save your coupons for another day.” 

We looked at her, wondering why she would say that.  Then she said, “Do you remember the lady who told you that you have a beautiful family?  She paid for your lunch.  She wants you to know that you reminded her of her son, who she doesn’t see very often.”

Oh.  My.  You sometimes hear stories of this happening, but we certainly never expected it to happen to us!   My eyes just filled with tears at being the recipients of such a sweet kindness!  We look forward to finding a time to pay it forward!

Moving on to Jak’s…I’d hoped Keith could use his cell phone (which takes great pictures), but his battery died.  So we only have a few lousy pictures from my cell phone.  The kids LOVED Ballocity – a climbing structure with tunnels and slides and lots of foam balls.  They played in there for an hour!

Then the boys tried the lower level of the Sky Trail, which they loved!  Max thinks he would like the big one, but he’s two inches too short.  Alex was tall enough for the big one, but had no interest in trying it!  (It was really high up!  I would have done it, but even I would have been a bit nervous!)

We tried this little music game, where you stomp on the pictures.  Jensyn liked it a lot!

We played a little skee ball, a few arcade & crane games, and just did what we could to use up the points on our card.  Each child picked out a piece of candy and a bouncy ball in the prize shop.  It ended up being a really fun day, and we did get the predicted snow (11 inches), so we’re glad we had a chance to get out and have a great time burning off energy!

Christmas With Grandma & Grandpa P

Finally!  I’ve found the pictures – for some reason, these were NOT downloading to the computer.  They’ve been stuck on the camera, even though I’ve transferred all of the pictures to the computer multiple times.  I had to find an alternate method to get these to the computer.  Ugh.

From my spot on the couch, I didn’t get great pictures…but here’s what we have of Christmas Day at Grandma & Papa’s house…

annual gag gift for Kevin – a string cup phone to make
long distance calls to Jessica at college this fall

Christmas Morning at Home

Cinnamon rolls – Alex has now recognized this is our tradition, and it’s not Christmas morning without these!  We’ve done canned cinnamon rolls, homemade cinnamon roll bread, and now we’ve moved on to amazingly good homemade cinnamon rolls.  It’s definitely a tradition that will be sticking around!

The other part of this tradition is sticking a candle in the cinnamon rolls & singing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus!  We do open presents first…but we don’t play with presents or do anything else until we’ve sung Happy Birthday!  (We went to church on Christmas Eve, and all month long we read the “Jesus Storybook Bible” advent plan, finishing it up on Christmas Eve before putting the kids to bed.)

We have an every day rule that kids may not get up for the day until 7 AM.  That rule still applies on Christmas day, but we had two little boys read to go at 7 AM.  We had to wake Jensyn, our sleepyhead, and give her a few minutes to realize that CHRISTMAS was worth being roused from her cozy, warm bed!

Peeking at what’s under the tree.  Santa doesn’t wrap, and one of Jensyn’s presents from Mom & Dad wasn’t wrapped because it was too big to easily wrap.  (It was a gently used Klip Klop Stable that I purchased from a friend whose daughters had outgrown it.)  So that was their first stop…checking out the unwrapped gifts.

  

moving along to stockings…

Stockings were pretty simple – a small coloring book/dot-to-dot book, a candy cane of Hershey’s candies, a regular candy cane, some character band-aids, and either a book (Jensyn) or a TMNT coloring set with markers (both boys).  I think stockings were under $10/child.

And now opening the wrapped presents from Mom & Dad


As usual, each child got 3 gifts from us.  This year, we limited gifts to about $30/child total.
(Thank goodness for GREAT sales & for buying gently used toys!)
Max: K’Nex, Switch & Go Dino, and TMNT t-shirt
Alex: Batman Lego set, Bumblebee transformer, and TMNT t-shirt
Jensyn – Klip Klop Stable, new Sofia dress, and TMNT pink t-shirt

It was after this that the kids started to realize they hadn’t spotted their Santa gifts yet.  Then the boys discovered a Wii U hiding in the corner!  (How did I not get a picture of this?!  Our Wii died in early December, so the boys were THRILLED to have this!  It was their biggest Christmas wish!) 

Jensyn finally looked up and saw the beautiful, pink, handmade tablecloth playhouse over the kitchen table!  If you can’t tell, she loves it!  All 3 kids play in it, and it’s a great place for lots of imaginative play!  (My friend Erin made this…I’ll have to post more pictures sometime, but it was a labor of love that included my mom & sister helping me select fabrics and use a ZILLION coupons at the fabric store & then a lot of hard work by Erin to make this into a reality!)

Daddy opening his gift from the kids…
and the Christmas aftermath - crazy wrapping paper & toy mess!