June Wrap-up

I cannot believe June has ended already, and with it the first month of summer vacation! The summer got off to a slow start, but has since picked up speed and is just flying by!

My sweet BooBerry!

Hard to believe Liam turned 15 back on the 6th. Wow. Looking back through pictures reminded me of the deal he and I made back when he was 4 years old. He was a thumb-sucker, and as he approached his 5th birthday, I really tried to get him to break the habit. He was resistant, of course, so I decided to bargain with him. I would give up my favorite part of the day (which happened to be nap time…) if he would give up his thumb. He told me that on his 5th birthday, he would stop sucking his thumb. Well, true to his word, he woke up on his 5th birthday and that thumb never went into his mouth again. I still miss nap time… That was 10 years ago now! It seems like just a few months ago…

Happy 15th Birthday, Boo!

Speaking of Liam, he has been doing football conditioning three times a week since the second week of June. Conditioning is optional, but it is really getting the boys who can attend into great shape! Official practice starts on August 6, and Liam is really excited for high school practice. It is looking to be a good year for the team.

Back on the 17th, Rob and I celebrated our 17th Anniversary! Once again, how time doth fly! Hard to believe we are coming up on 20 years of knowing each other! Are we really old enough to have known each other that long? Why yes, yes we are… I think I will insert another ‘Wow’ here!

Love, Love, LOVE this man!

The twins and I have been staying busy while Liam has been in football. There are a lot of activities around the area that we have been attending. They have also been doing a lot of swimming. Catheryn is getting ready for the start of the cross-country season on July 23 and Nathan is looking forward to the start of football on August 13. I have already received school registration dates, which tells me just how fast the summer is going!

July is looking to be another busy month. For those of you who remember the 50th birthday trip to Alaska we surprised Rob with months ago, you may be surprised to hear that he is leaving TOMORROW! It was months away and now it is tomorrow! I think he is going to have a blast.

Many of you may know that we are required to live here in the park. We requested to move out last summer, but were denied. We decided to try again this year, and they granted our request! After 8 years of our kids sharing a room (yes, EIGHT…) they will finally have their own rooms in the little house we are purchasing in town! We close on July 25 and could not be more excited!

I think that is about it for now. I am hoping that once we move into town we will have better internet so I will be able to load pictures and updates more regularly. For now, though, I am grateful for the library. 🙂

Hope everyone is having a wonderful summer!!!!!

Weekend at the Lake

It is hard to believe it is the end of May already. This year is just flying by! Last year we did not make it out for as much camping as we would have liked, so this year we decided to get a better start. For Memorial Day weekend, we made our way to Morphy Lake State Park. It is a small lake a little over two hours from here. The water level is really low due to lack of snow this winter, but that did not stop people from heading out to fish. The lake was quite crowded every day that we were there.

We set up camp on Friday and spent three nights. We spent the weekend fishing and playing on the boats. The kids caught crawdads and frogs, even some baby fish. It was a great relaxing way to spend the weekend.

Everyone had a wonderful time and we are looking forward to heading out again. Unfortunately, a lot of campgrounds are now closed due to extreme fire danger. Hopefully we will get some good rain soon.

I have some catching up to do on the blog, but since pictures will not load with our poor internet at home, I have to come to town to get it done. It is my goal to get all caught up within the next week or so. I guess late is always better than never!

For now, though, here are some pictures from our weekend. 🙂 Hope everyone enjoyed a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!

Nathan was the first to catch a fish!

It was quite muddy, so everything, fish included, ended up brown…

This one was determined to catch the most fish on day 1, which he did. He caught 6.

Camping fish fry!

Nathan loves sleeping in his hammock when we go camping.

Hanging with the Hummers

 

Summer Adventures ~ June 2016

Since we are now finishing up our second full week of school (already!!), I figured I had better try and catch up on our summer activities! Of course, if I were a smart person (which obviously I am not), I would have been filling you in as we went along, but somehow time just kept getting away from me. So, better late than never… Right? Yea, we will just go with that…

I think the best way to do this is to do one month at a time. So, here we go with June!

We kicked off the summer with some camping up on the mesa, about three miles from home, and we had a blast. The days of June were filled with hiking and exploring, trips to Albuquerque for visits to the aquarium and Museum of Natural History, drives through the mountains. As the month went on, we celebrated Liam’s 13th birthday at Gravity Park, Catheryn took a week long art class at Fuller Lodge and loved it, we made regular visits to the library and farmer’s market, even got some work done on the car. And as the first full month of summer came to an end, my parents came for a visit. We had a really nice time while they were here, exploring the park, taking small drives, and just catching up.

June just flew by, but at the time we were not too worried because we knew we still had two months of summer left. What we failed to realize was that they were going to fly by just as fast…

Care Bears like camping, too!

Daddy’s boy

Rio Grande Gorge

Rio Grande Gorge

Nathan waking up from a night in his hammock.

We spent a lot of time at the track…

Ashley Pond Park

Liam’s Birthday on the Rock!

Liam’s Birthday on the Rock!

Gravity Park in ABQ.

Hiking…

My parents came for a visit!

Hiking…

ABQ Aquarium

ABQ Botanic Garden

Random Summer Snapshots

“Any day spent with you is my favorite day. So today is my new favorite day.” ~Winnie the Pooh

Punt Pass and Kick

Swing jumping…

Natie Poo

Snuggle Buddies

Sweet little Hamish

Slip and Slide

Fun at the Fair

Petting Zoo

Fun at the park

And might I just add that it was 16 years ago today that Rob and I went on our very first date… 🙂

“As soon as I saw you, I knew a grand adventure was about to happen.” A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

Weekly Photo Challenge: Gone, But Not Forgotten…

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness. ~John Steinbeck

Summer Days

Fightin’ Phils baseball

Six Flags, New Jersey

Waldo

“Fireweed”

Most of our volunteer hours here in the park are spent in the gardens, weeding and maintaining or occasionally planting flowers. These last few weeks, however, we were painting. The kids were excited because this was their first painting project. There were days I was convinced they had more paint on themselves than they had actually gotten on the building, but they worked hard and did a really good job.

Seven gallons of paint later, we are all finished and it looks much better. New roof, new windows, fresh coat of paint, all it needs now is a little TLC on the old doors and it will look as good as new. I am so glad we were entrusted with this project because we really did have a good time. Standing out in the sunshine (with the spiders…), painting bugs (and spiders…), running from bees (and spiders…), swatting gnats (and spiders…). I’m pretty sure it doesn’t get much better than that!

 

Rolling Right Along

Summer is rolling right along here in Pennsylvania. Somehow we are managing to stay out of trouble. (Shocking, I know.) I am not sure it is possible, but it appears as though summer is already halfway over. Many of our hot summer days have been spent down at the creek where the kids swim until they are prunes. There have been plenty of activities on the side to keep us busy as well.

Last month we headed over to the Chester County Balloon Festival. It was a two day event, but the first day was windy and rainy so we opted to go on the second day. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day… for kite flying. They were not able to launch any of the balloons due to the wind, but there were so many people there for the show that they inflated a few at dusk so at least we could see them glow. It was a little disappointing, but there was nothing anyone could do. We will just have to find another festival to attend.

The Fourth of July found us in Philadelphia. We figured it was the perfect place to celebrate the holiday since that is where the Declaration of Independence was signed. They put on an incredible parade that everyone enjoyed. We really wanted to see inside Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, but everyone else apparently had the same idea, so the lines were insane. We decided that since it is only a little over an hour away, we will plan another trip on a non-holiday.

When we were on our way out to watch the fireworks, we happened upon a small town carnival. We gave the kids the choice between going to see the fireworks and staying at the carnival. Big surprise, I know, but they chose the carnival. For almost three hours they ran around together and rode every ride possible. It was small enough that Rob and I were able to walk around the circle and still keep an eye on the kids. We shared a funnel cake, played some skee ball, watched the kids get spun around every which way. We had a great time.

In other news, we saw our very first flying squirrel! There are actually two of them (that we have seen anyway) and they visit our bird feeder every night. They are extremely fast and cute little critters. There appears to be another critter visiting us nightly as well, only he is not quite as nice to the poor feeder. I had been finding the feeder on the ground every morning so I hung it on a carabiner instead of a hook, and this morning the feeder was still hanging but the windows had both been knocked out. It is now hung back up with bands around the windows, so I am curious how it will look in the morning…

And finally, the fireflies are back in full force. Step outside in the evening and there are hundreds of little sparks every direction you look. Being from the west, I do not think I had ever even seen fireflies until last spring, and they just amaze me. Such incredible little bugs…

Hope everyone is having a wonderful summer!

Pennsylvania Summer

It seems as if just last week we were down in Tennessee, planning our drive to Pennsylvania. And yet, here we are, three months later, almost at the end of our first Pennsylvania summer. Time, as always, has marched on much faster than we had hoped. It is really quite beautiful here. It has rained regularly throughout the summer so everything is still so green, reminding me of spring in other parts in the country. I had never been in a place where the fire danger stayed low all summer long. We experienced the great cicadas for the first time this year, too. I had no idea bugs could be so incredibly loud! We also enjoyed an amazing population of lightning bugs. Deer passed by on a daily basis, allowing us to watch the babies grow and lose their spots. Perhaps the neatest animals, though, were the ones we rarely see. We crossed paths with a spotted skunk, a raccoon and even an opossum. Being so close to Lancaster County, we saw many Amish buggies out on the road. The rolling farmland and endless cornfields make for a beautiful backdrop on country roads. I am not sure we ever got used to the humidity or the gnats, but we have really enjoyed our time here. If all goes as planned, we will be back up here next summer. There is still so much to see and do. For now, though, it is time to get ready to roll. Having been parked under dripping maple trees all summer, Waldo is in desperate need of a bath. By the end of the month, we will be Kentucky bound…