soldier creek

this last weekend we finally went on our first camping trip of the summer. we left friday afternoon for soldier creek (strawberry reservoir). smarts headed up a day earlier and kamryn and hunter couldn't wait to get up there and play with their buddies. oh- and if you ever go camping with smarts it is NEVER just their little family of 5... it consist of the whole famdam- which is so much fun and the kids have so many little buddies to choose from!

day 1:

i keep having a fear that i entertain my kids too much. that if left to their own devices they wouldn't be able to entertain themselves. this weekend my fears were calmed. the first thing the kids did was play, "MOOOOOO!". what is moo? it took a minute for us to figure out what was going on, but i think this is how it worked. hunter was the cow. and the rest of the kids would go hide and hunter would moo as he was trying to find them. kind of like hide and seek, but hunter was ALWAYS the cow and then the kids would scream and giggle when he found them. it was quite nice only having to listen for the 'moo' any time i wanted to know where hunter was.

kamryn and kira running from 'moo'

fyi- there is no better place to work on potty training (for a little boy) than in your back yard or up camping. i made sure all his pants were elastic waisted so he could pull them up and down by HIMSELF. hence the reason for the erckle pants... he was on his own when it came to peeing. every time i see that arched stream it makes me giggle...

day 2:

the big boys went fishing a lot. i forgot to take my camera down to the dock so i don't have any pictures of the boat or the reservoir... stupid me! but we walked down to the dock quite a few times this weekend (we had to walk off everything that shelly, calvin's cousin, fed us!!!!). the kids used calvin's minnow trap to catch crawdads. they thought that was pretty cool.

after lunch we loaded the kids up and drove down the road a couple of miles for a little hike. we weren't even 3 minutes from the truck and she took a tumble head over heels down the trail. and then playing by the stream she grabbed onto stinging nettle... it was a rough go... but i think we all had fun. we made the kids take off their pants to play in the stream. hunter stripped down to his nutnunas... his choice, not mine.

jeff and calvin were like little kids playing on the stream. i say ON because neither on of them even put a toe in the freezing water!

i was trying to get a cute picture of kamryn with saige, but kamryn had just realized she'd grabbed on to stinging nettle... check out her knees- that's from the first tumble down the trail.

when we were getting the kids dressed after splashing our toes in the freezing water someone discovered this big black butterfly sitting on a little tree. and when we looked closer we realized this was no ordinary butterfly... it had TWO sets of wings... wait for it...

warning!!! the next few pictures contain sexual content...

hummm... i always wondered how that worked, and now i know...

on the way back to the truck hunter and addy got little spoiled. hunter loved riding in the back pack and cried when we had to take him out and put him in the truck.

the 'hike' was fun and it did the job i was hoping for it to do... check out the kids eyes and tell me they aren't tired!

day 3:

i got my kids cereal for breakfast (jeff was fishing again) and we were greeted by 2 more little 'hungry' monsters. kenzie swore they had already eaten... but you would have never known!!!

no, hunter did not fall on his face. to get the that dirt so perfectly placed takes talent!!! first, you rub your arms along the dirty tires on the trailer and then you ever so gently continue to rub your arm along your face to create the perfect 'dirt face'. oh- and check out addy's smile- now you know why we love that little girl so much!

kenzie was nice enough to play nail parlor with the girls... she is kamryn's new hero for this!

next activity on the list... CRASH! hunter and heston (kenzie's nephew) could have played this for hours. they would back the tonka trucks up, and up, and up and then yell 'GO!' and they would both run full speed until they crashed into each other. and then they would giggle and giggle. it had to hurt going the speed they were, but they didn't seem to mind.

i love this picture... it captures the determination this little kid can have (not to mention the running style of most 2 year olds).

'the crew'

(heston, saige, addy, kamryn, and hunter)