Memorial Day weekend

We went camping this weekend at the Conference Grounds.  It was a bit cold, but it didn't rain at all which was nice.  We go with some friends (and some family/friends of them).  It's nice to have some people to do things with, but there aren't many expectations and we can do our own things too.

We got there right around dinner on Friday.  I often try to get there a little earlier, but between the kids being at home and it being cold we waited to leave.  Not much was all that interesting about Friday night, but the kids enjoyed the playground and we had a fire.

Saturday we did the fun run.  It was a bit of a fun walk.  The boys completed the mile in 15 minutes while I showed up a few minutes later.

Afterwards we collected Ben and took a walk to the lake.  There's actually a bit of sand this year, which was nice.  ...not that we played in it though as it was also rather cold.

We went on the wagon ride.

And played mini-golf.  Joshua got his first hole-in-one on hole one.

Ben also participated in a game of dodgeball.  Sadly, the parents lost.

Sunday we did some frisbee golf.  Sometimes the boys were way too silly, sometimes they did a nice job.

A very old frisbee finally hit the dust.  This is rather unimportant, but I did like the juxtaposition of "life is good" on a broken frisbee.

The boys loved the merry-go-round.  I went over a few times to give them pushes and they would just stay on as long as I'd push.

Ben and I enjoyed our books quite a bit too!

Monday we slowly packed up, took a walk, the boys played on the playground, etc.  Nothing very special, but it still took us until about 2:15 to leave!  Packing up doesn't really take that long, but there were assorted talking, reading, and walking breaks.  Many people seemed to leave before lunch this year which was a bit surprising and it felt empty by the time we actually pulled out.

Thursday: home

Ben's home! Ben's home!

Wednesday: game

 Joshua's been playing a game around me these last few days.  It's one of those games where he follows me around while I work and I need to just say a few things here and there to progress the story.  (Usually.  Sometimes I need to be more involved.)

Part of the armor has also come with wrist-maps.  This map is a pretty simple one, but I've seen some more elaborate ones too.

Tuesday: sleep over

Since Ben is gone I said we could have a sleep over tonight.  Joshua was very excited.  I got the little mattress out in the morning and he got his bed all set up.

I think he might have been a bit disappointed in the execution though, because I didn't go to bed at the same time as the boys.

Monday

Ben's gone for a few days, but other than that it was a pretty normal day.  We finally went back to the dojang for karate.  We do the family class when we go, and everyone likes that class a bit more.

Isaac read something about cheetahs for school, and Tornado was acting all needy, so I gave Isaac a mini-cheetah to hold.

Sunday: in pictures

 Ben grilled some steaks for us.  I think it's the first time we've actually grilled steaks, and they were delicious.  At least, they were delicious for the adults.  The kids didn't appreciate their few bites.

All my towels were in the wash.  (It took two days before I realized the dishwasher could at least serve as a drying rack.)  I found an old bib.  It was a bit weird, but worked.

I put the cat box up yesterday and Horizon enjoyed it this morning.  They stopped using it in the middle of the summer last year, so I wasn't sure if they were going to go back in or not.

Ben's "favorite" animal is a penguin, mainly due to a joke one day in the car with the kids.  So whenever I see a penguin book I get it.  This one was especially cute.

Isaac made a stop motion video.

Saturday: the good and the bad

Let's start with the bad news: the roof is in need of significant repairs due to hail and our insurance provider has not been approving any roof claims due to hail.

OK, that was the bad news of the day.  There was much more good news.

*The roof, while in need of repair, is not leaking.  It needs to be dealt with soon but is not urgent.  

*Dealing with the freezer was a bit easier than expected.  It helped a ton to have a hand-dolly and a walk out basement.  It took Ben and Larry a bit of time at the store because they apparently moved the unit, but that was probably the worst.  Lowe's even recycled our old one (for a fee), so it's gone!  Getting this all situated calmed me down a lot.

*All the flowers/plants are set for the summer.  Well, more-or-less.  We need to fence the strawberry because something ate our first one.  Isaac choose a watermelon plant and Joshua has some snap dragons.  There are also a few other random things that we're trying to grow from seed, so we'll see how it goes.

*The boys were incredibly content today.  This isn't to say that they just did their own thing, but they easily found things to do.  At one point this involved nailing, drilling, and inserting screws into a board, but it lasted a while.

*It felt like we used most of the appliances in the kitchen today.  While this isn't close to true, using so many was a slight mistake because there were a lot of dishes and still no dishwasher.  But dinner was good and there's banana bread for breakfast.