Scout Camping Trip 08

We had our first camping trip for the year this weekend! We were all very excited and ready to be camping again since the last time we went was the end of last year's Scout season in the Spring. That was COLD (it got below freezing). This was a warm camping trip which I prefer. We went up Friday night and spent two nights this time. It was definitely worth it! There were A LOT of people! And it was A LOT of fun! What's funny is I started this blog one year ago with pictures from our first camping trip with the Scouts. This was our third trip. I hope there will be many more.

The sunrise was beautiful! I took this picture the first morning. It wasn't quite as good the second morning though. We were all up on the rock waiting. I gave up, and showed everyone the cool sunrise from the morning before and went back to camp (hee hee).

There was a really cool rock are that the kids loved playing on.

We had fun taking this picture, trying to make it look like Mike was holding the sun.

Ryan liked the picture of Mike holding the sun, so he had me take this picture of him holding the lantern that was hanging in the tree. He said "make sure the top is cut off".

Amber is really getting good at taking pictures.

Ryan being silly, he put his stuffed animals in the door between the screen so they could see everything.

We had a great time fishing! Didn't catch anything, but had fun. Ryan took one of Mike's fishing lure and put it in a bottle of water and called it his pet. He kept it the whole trip and brought it home to show his friends.

I got lots of Amber time, while Dad helped with the Scouts. Amber did great and even read three books for her homework =)

Amber took this picture, it shows a bit of everything, Mike, our camp site, and me reading in the background (it was a really good book!)

Even camping Amber dresses soooo cute =) She was a super camper! She seems to love it and didn't even mind the fact that there really were no girls for her to play with. (she did spend some time chasing, and being chased by boys . . . humm)

This was our kitchen set up. We had four different stoves cooking the pancakes, bacon (every morning), biscuits and gravy, etc.etc. We really ate quite well:) yum!
Mike helped cook every meal =)

Rob Davis is the Dragon Patrol Leader and his wife Kristen helps with absolutely everything when it comes to camp outs and Den meetings for Ryan's Patrol

Now that Ryan is a WEBLOS he gets to help with the flag ceremony.

They spent a lot of time talking with the boys about safety, first aid, what to do in emergency situations etc. Parents and kids were involved which was great.

A father in our den made this solar oven with cardboard and foil. Last campout we cooked cookies, this time we cooked lunch for everyone, 80 hotdogs, and it didn't take long at all.

They always have a big campfire event on Saturday night. All of the Den's put on skits and it is a lot of fun with smores for the kids and cobbler for the adults afterwards. Jeff Hardy is the Leader and definitely a wild and crazy guy =)

We ended our trip with a short hike to the "water fall" . . . .well it was an area where the water was flowing over rocks that went down, and it was very pretty, definitely worth it. It was an awesome camping trip!! We all had a blast!

Flying Home

I know I haven't blogged in awhile, but my parents decided to have a 50th Wedding Anniversary Party and were kind enough to fly Me, Mike and the kids out so we could be with them for this special occasion! Before leaving I was busy with all the arrangements and this is the first chance I have had to try to update since school starting.

The kids were very excited about flying, it has been a long time since we have flown =)

The kids had to miss a week of school and so they had homework and projects they worked on while we were away. This is a picture with Leo the monkey. He was a special guest from Ryan's class. When we got home we put together a few pages in Leo's scrapbook with pictures of Leo and notes about what he saw and did with us. It was not easy to always "remember the monkey". Unfortunately he got left behind on many of the cool little adventures we had . . . he was there, jut not in the picture.

We had the joy of flying from Tulsa to Atlanta (2 hours) then fly Atlanta to Seattle (5 hours) On the longer flight in the really big airplane (Ryan says it was a 767) the pilots greeted us and on seeing Ryan's Boeing shirt they promptly sat both kids in the cockpit and even put their pilot hats on them =) What a great start to an awesome trip=)

We let Ryan practice taking a picture (he did a pretty good job)

So of course Amber wanted to take a picture too. I think they both have it down. I thought it was funny because I didn't know that Ryan snuck into this shot. I thought it was just me and Mike.

The kids did great on the planes coming and going (even with a mechanical and switch in planes on our last flight very late on Sunday 9/14. We didn't get to bed until 1:30am, but no worries, the kids made it to school the next day . . . .ugh
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The food was lacking, but entertainment has definitely improved =)

Space Needle

We landed in Seattle just after 5pm and our goal was to see the Space Needle that night. We did make it, but it was dark. It was awesome to see all the lights and get this cool picture.

It was perfect weather! A beautiful day in Seattle!

BOEING TOUR

We managed to plan a little vacation (besides seeing family) mainly for Mike and the boy =) We bought tickets in advance for the Boeing Tour. I say "in advance" because just days before we left Boeing went on strike and the tour was cancelled. Thankfully they replaced it with a modified tour (for free) and we ended up going to the Museum of flight as well. It was awesome and worked out wonderfully anyway.
This picture is so similar to the one we actually had taken on the plane we flew on, but this was at the museum.

We all had fun sitting in the cool airplanes . . . okay I didn't, but someone had to take the pictures =) This whole day was all about airplanes . . . and then we drove to Wenatchee.

Playing with the Cousins

I think the favorite part of the trip for Ryan and Amber was playing with their cousins! Even though they had already started back to school, and football, and trumpet lessons etc. etc. ... every night my sister, Rob and the boys came over and we all got to spend some time together! What a blessing!

Ryan's favorite thing to do . . . . LEGGO's and Rhett and Rheid have lot's of Leggo's =)

O'ma taught Rhett and Rheid how to make "Puppy Chow" so they helped Ryan and Amber make some . . . actually we had the whole family involved (especially in the eating)

It wouldn't be a visit home without cards. We played a lot of 3 Penny, something Amber could play and we all had fun

O'ma and O'pa pulled out the special matching rings and we have another picture of all the cousins holding their rings.


Here is the last time we took a picture of them all together holding their rings.