Finally!

This summer was supposed to be the summer of camping around here.....

well......We FINALLY made it out for the FIRST time last weekend. :) We went up to a new (to me) camping place on Baldy mountain called Half moon lake. But we camped on a little creek and the kids had a blast!

it had a cool log all the way accross it that you could walk across. Lane was excited to build a dam in the creek

Scott and Lane working on their dam

the girls had fun playing on the "island"

macy kept trying to eat the rocks....i can't believe she didn't get giardia!! :)

Lucy had so much fun throwing rocks in the water. She would go find one and bring it to me and show me her rock and say "oooooh.....coool"

more dam

the other side of the log

macy wouldn't cooperate for a picture

cutie lucy on her camping chair

smiles!

lane wanted in

me and my bud

goofy

more creek

and some more

yay for cheetos!

macy is a genious!!! she learned how to drink out of a straw already!

we went for a little walk. Macy loves her baby backpack....as long as you're moving

lucy had fun on our walk too :) with her own personal chauffer!

lane made a spear to protect us on our walk

this is how we had to trap macy. We didn't bring her pack n play....and got tired of letting her crawl in the dirt...we found out that she LOVES beef jerky....

and chocolate :)

and grahams! :)

it's a good thing we have a nice HUGE tent with two rooms in it!

this is the kids side of the tent......notice it's EMPTY.....it didn't start out that way

and this is where they all ended up!!!

gee, macy......Why do you look so tired?? OOH, maybe becuase you refused to sleep and woke up every half hour ALL NIGHT!?!??! right......

she was crazy.

at one point we looked at the cell phone and it was only 2AM. We seriously considered throwing all the kids in the car and packing up and going home!! BUT after that episode, all the kids actually slept well till 7AM so it wasn't too bad. They're funny though....lucy and lane kept crawling out of their sleeping bags and having to be put back in. Lucy ended up between me and scott...and was in the door way of the two rooms and macy was.....who knows.....:) it was fun though and we LOVE Our new tent..... though we are going to TRY the camper out next weekend....just to say we tried it. I went and cleaned it up after two years....and now that it's clean again, it's not so bad.....as long as we don't get any more "Visitors" while we're using it.....wish us luck!

Random

I had these random pics left in my "blog" folder....so .....here you go :)

Isn't she a cutie!?? I couldn't remember if i'd posted this on another post.....so i figured I'd put it up anyways....

hee hee....Good thing i put the cute one first, huh :) I think Lane actually took this picture of macy.....no...she doesn't have the chickenpox....her face is just dirty :)

Lane's picture of the sun. He was pretty proud of this picture

Look what I did! I made a tree ring. I loaded up the kids into the van with about 20 granola bars and 10 apples...and we drove around the lake with the hatch up so i could get out and throw rocks in as we went along :) You'd think living in rock heaven i'd be able to find enough rocks on my OWN property to make my tree rings......oh no......i still have to make another round to do the OTHER tree in our yard :)

Another cutie macy pic :) She's a fun little baby. I can't believe she's already 10 months old!!!! she's trying to keep up with her big sister already in lots of ways. It's pretty fun to watch them together. They're latest thing is "wrestling" with each other. It always starts out well...but almost always ends up with lucy spread eagle on top of poor macy.....no mercy :)

Ode to Lucy

Lucy, you are such a sweet little girl. You have such an infectious laugh and the cutest little grin EVER!!

You are turning into such a little "mama". You LOVE your "babies" and take care of them all day

We love our little lucy lou!

Cheeze face and all :)

Cowboy up!

Scott and Lane before the Deer Park Rodeo. Me and the girls were ready to go but as we were loading up and getting ready Lucy decided to start the ensuing week-long-puke fest. So me and the girls went home and lane went with scott and had a BLAST! Isn't he the cutest thing in his little hat, you can't see from the pic but he's wearing spurs and he has a rope to practice his lasso-ing..

The we went to the Cusik Rodeo this past weekend. Me and Lucy waiting for the bull riders...

the kids and scott in the stands....Macy is totally eye-balling lucy's snow cone

Backpacking

This past week I took my Young Women from church on a little backpack trip. (sorry girls that I'm posting your picture on my blog!! :) We had a good time, and i've decided that I really want to buy a backpack

Before the trip....they're still smiling :)

The view from Trout Lake from up on the trail

More lake....

This picture is for my friend Kandis :) She likes dead tree pics

The girls were pretty tough. I made them do all their own stuff...including starting their fire with flint and steel....

"good morning!"

I was pretty impressed that most everyone just slept out under the stars. We had one gal in a hammock, one brought a tent, the rest were just out under the stars on a tarp! Including ME! I have never done that before, i've always brought a tent, but scott said we weren't allowed to this time. It wasn't too bad except I didn't sleep :) I thought a mouse was going to crawl in my sleeping bag!

all in all it was a fun trip, the girls liked it! They said they would do it again next year! I'll have to find a longer hike for next year.

Remember these guys?

They hatched!

And they grew!

And Grew....
And got too big for their nest! I was standing outside looking at them one day and all of a sudden they all JUMPED OUT at me!! it was crazy...they were trying to fly, they parents were freaking out and dive bombing me and the kids....it was fun :) so i stole their nest cuz I think it looked really neat. See you again next year baby birds!

Redneck BBQ

What do you do when the bottom of your BBQ rusts out??

Cook your steak on a rock of course!

We tested out our new little fire pit and used a piece of slate to cook our steak :) way to be resourcefull, Scott
Lane thought it was pretty fun, and then remembered that on Shrek, they cooked an egg on a rock and he wanted to try it....so he and scott cooked an egg on the rock...

Good times :) the steaks turned out pretty good!

Make the best of it

It all started like this:

Innocent enough
do you see the mischeivious grin??

Then she got Lane into the action

good thing they were clean,.... I guess....

So why was my laundry hanging out to dry anyways, you ask?? Well i was trying to go "green" of course.....RIGHT!!!! My dryer decided it was done with it's earthly mission...no problem....i can hang clothes out to dry....well that was cool until the next day my WASHING machine decided it was NOT going to work alone so IT died too!! Lame....it's ok...we got new(ish) ones after a few days so all is well again with the world....

Settler's Day

I think if we had to live in a town, I would like Deer Park. It's a cute little town, and has lots of fun little community traditions. One of the traditions we like is "settler's day" It has a parade, and they games/fair in the park. We actually got there in time for the parade this year, AND got to sit in the shade along the road!

Lucy and Scott watching the parade
Lane being a silly. Modeling his sweet water bottle

One of the funniest things i've seen in a parade was when smokey the bear came. He was walking along and kids would run up and give him a hug. Lane decided he wanted to run out and give him a hug, and when he was walking back, smokey bent over to give another kid a hug and his head fell off!!!! it was helarious...the parade announcer was like..."AHHH DON"T LOOK KIDS!!!!" hehe...it was good stuff

Then we headed to the park for games and stuff...They have a little petting zoo for the kids...Lucy thought that part was pretty fun!

Lane also liked the petting zoo but was NOT a fan of getting his picture taken, and mama was tooo slow with the shutter to catch him :) He's walking out of the picture on the right...

Here's Lucy getting ready for her foot race. Maybe it's just me, but watching about 20 little kids under the age of 2 running a race is about the cutest thing ever!!

Lucy was DEAD last in her race...:) it was awesome.

Lane getting ready for his race. He was pretty excited becuase last year he WON his race, but this year he got third....and he was NOT happy about that. It's tough learning that lesson...but he went and got his "prize money" anyways....

they do a "penny scramble" for the little kids....they just throw a bunch of change out in the grass and let the kids pick it up and keep it. Lucy thought that was a fun game.

it was a fun day! the kids are getting better at outings like this! Even macy did pretty good. Until next year!

Huckleberry time!

I will preface this post with the disclaimer that I have turned into a complete slacker in the picture taking department!!!

We went to Baldy mountain to pick huckleberries today!!! It was so much fun, and such a pretty drive up the mountain. I love that we can drive down the road and up a mountain in almost any given direction!

Our picker pair! Lane was a great picker this year, and once lucy got the hang of it, you could set her in front of a bush and let her go at it. Of course none got in the BUCKET, just her mouth. But at least she was happy!! She would even pick a bunch and go "share" them with Macy....aka: Stuff them in Macy's mouth :) It was so cute. By the day's end, poor macy had a lap-full of berries, and a very purple stained shirt!
This is Lane modeling how to put the bucket on your belt for easier picking...

Scott and macy getting ready to walk and pick.

here's the stash. I think we did pretty darn good for a couple hours of picking with 3 little kids!

This is for my friends and family in Ohio that have never seen or heard of a huckleberry. This is what they look like......they're amaaaazing :)

So we have a little stash to freeze for the winter. I'm excited to try and make a huckleberry pie....and of course huckleberry milkshakes...mmmmmmm