Confirmation

Sunday Gwyn was officially confirmed as a member of the United Methodist Church.  While I recognize that Gwyn had already accepted Jesus as her Savior and been baptized as a believer previously, this is a special day for our family.  It's like an induction into the church as a full member.  She studied over the past several weeks with two other confirmands and our preacher, Rev. Amy.  They learned and discussed scripture, Methodist history, theology, and other faiths and denominations.  I am proud of her desire to know more about our faith and the history of the Church.  The pictures didn't turn out so well, but it was a special day we celebrated with our family and our church.

The last AG program of the year

There's always an excuse to go to the Cow!

My last American Girl program of the school year was for Josefina.  Josefina's story is filled with a lot of work, so I tried to find a way to make chores fun.  We did a clothing relay where the kids couldn't grab the clothes with their hands, they had to use clothespins.  This was harder than I thought it would be and it took a while, but the girls all seemed to have fun.  They definitely don't want to have to do washing like Josefina did.

Josefina also learned to weave and make blankets for her family to sell.  We settled for plate weaving.  When completed, you end up with a yarn "doily." They turned out pretty nice!

Our First ParkQuest of 2015

We started off our ParkQuest activities at Seneca Creek State Park in Gaithersburg.  This is a really nice state park tucked away amongst the urban sprawl of Gaithersburg.  I never would have dreamed it was there.  It has a really nice lake and boat house too.  The boat house was closed, but we were able to do the quest on foot.  None of the quests this year involve boating, even at the parks that have those facilities.  That's a bit of a bummer, but it's still fun to go.
The quest had us hiking a trail and considering some of the tools and skills that native people would need to use to live before Europeans came.  We carried water in a gourd, and brainstormed how to use various items found in the forest, and lashed poles to create a shelter.  There's also an amazing 100 year old peony field at this park.  I felt like we were in Oz.  It was a beautiful place.

Seneca Creek also has a really cool playgound with a zipline and a huge dragon made of tires.  The girls had a really good time here!

This lake is really nice.  I would love to come back and rent a boat here.  I can only imagine how busy it is on the weekends though.  I just need a canoe of my own! :)

Third Annual Parn Camping Trip

For the third year in a row now, we have taken Memorial Day weekend to go camping in Ohio with our wonderful friends from Illinois.  We always camp in the Hocking Hills area, this year at the Hocking Hills Adventures Riverside Campground.  We're used to a state park campground so this was a little different.  But still super fun!
Jason had been working some long hours and so when the day came for us to leave, we had planned on him coming home at lunch and us heading out.  He got stuck at work though and we weren't able to leave until 6pm.  So we didn't get to the campsite until midnight - which always makes putting up a tent interesting.  It was worth it though. What a fun weekend!
This year we took a canoe trip.  I can not even express how much I love to canoe/kayak.  It is one of my all-time favorite thing to do.  It's fun now also because the girls are all big enough that they don't have to have constant supervision.  Gwyn and Celee can totally handle a canoe, and Lyla knows enough not to tip one.

Who's afraid of a toad?  Not my girls!

One thing we look forward to when camping is the food.  In the past we plan out cool meals and take turns with who brings what.  We still did that somewhat, but we've all decided we just like to make parns. (Pie irons for the lay people)  If it's good, it is better in a parn.  Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert.  Yum-my!

We had a lot of fun with the sparklers.  There was the normal sparkler fun.  But Will also had his camera that he could take slow pictures with.  So we had lots of fun watching them all "drawing" pictures and "spelling" words in the air that you couldn't see until the picture took.

Of course we went hiking.  The caves and trails in Hocking Hills are the reason people go there.  And now we've been enough times that we have some favorite places, like Rock House.

I love that we have such awesome friends that we can camp with.  It takes something special to be able to be dirty and cook over a fire for three days with other people and still like each other when you leave.  We all keep coming back though, so it's working!  We can all be hangry, or gassy, or speak some truf and still have fun together. It is also worth noting that we're the only one with kids, but they all like our kids, so that works out too!  So Robin, Will, Jon, and Sarah - we love camping with ya'll and can't wait until we do it again next year!