STOP #1...HUME LAKE, California

Our first stop for a 2 week time period is HUME LAKE. This is a very special place to us and, I especially have many fond memories of HUME. We thought it would be a great place to go to be in the mountains to enjoy God’s creation and just relax without much of a schedule. We arrived Saturday afternoon. I have to admit, even though we were loving everything about Hume I could tell we (mostly Andy and I) were struggling with the thought of 14 days with no schedule. In our hearts we knew we wanted this time to be about days filled with family times and no schedules. For us this is very hard, so it was a bit overwhelming. By Monday afternoon I think we finally got in the groove. We started slowing down and just letting the days happen. My kids are in heaven. Our lodge room is very nice and it backs up to the junior high camp. There is a small creek out back that my boys have already spent countless hours playing in. We ride our bikes all over camp, swim, watch all the “big” kids do the “camp thing”, eat yummy food (that mommy doesn’t have to prepare!!), eat lots of ice cream, and enjoy some quite afternoons in our room reading or playing games on the deck. This week is extra fun because our old church is up here, so we see many people we know as we go about our days. In the evenings the boys have been going to day camp and Allie goes to Huckleberry house. They love the activities they get to do and Andy and I enjoy a couple hours of “us” time. It’s amazing how much slower 3 hours up here goes than down the mountain. On Monday we hiked the 3 mile trail that goes around the lake. My little troopers made it and got to pick a treat out from the general store when we finished. Instead of food Andrew chose some cool 1980 sunglasses. That boy just keeps me smiling with his “style”, He loves his glasses and feels juts like one of the big kid campers. Today (Tuesday) we were spoiled with a wonderful pancake breakfast up at “inspiration point.” This is a place at the very top of camp that had breath taking views. The camp prepares a delicious breakfast up there and they have picnic tables for us to enjoy breakfast. After breakfast we headed to the lake for some canoeing. After an afternoon of swimming and an evening of watching the bellyflop contest my kiddos were pooped. Thankfully the campers had a late night chapel, so the grounds were quite. We took advantage of that and everyone was tucked in by 7:30. So we are settled into our beautiful home for the next 14 days and we look forward to many fun activities to come!!

We're OFF!!!

Saturday, June 25, 2011 was the day that we set off for our first road trip adventure. Bags were packed, activities were planned, lists were checked off, everything was snug into the car, dad and mom were excited and a bit nervous, and the kids were bursting with enthusiasm over our journey ahead. Our plans spurred out of a desire that Andy and I had to do “something different” this summer. Last summer was a very stretching and difficult summer with Andrew’s cancer and gram’s passing. We wanted to do something that got us “away” and gave us the chance to be together as a family, so we got to planning!!! So here we go….. 5-6 weeks of family time and many memories were about to begin!!

Summer Solstice

We got the idea from our friend Rachelle, who lives up the street..so... because it involved planning a fun party...we DID it!! Tuesday was the summer solstice so we invited a bunch of neighbors, family, and friends over to our street. Everyone brought food to share and something to bbq. It was 105 degrees so we had a blow up pool or slip and slide on a couple lawns. The kids had a blast playing. We rented a snow cone machine and I took the kids to the store earlier in the week to pick out all the snow cone syrup. Everyone loved having a yummy and very cool treat! Andy filled up 100 water balloons and they were all gone in a matter of 2 minutes. Despite the heat we all hung out until dark. The kids ended the evening doing cannonballs into the muddy water in the blow up pool. Hearing them laugh was priceless!! We are going to miss all our family and friends a bunch this summer, so we were happy to have everyone together before we leave for our family adventure on the road!!!

Father's Day...

We LOVE our daddy so much and we love celebrating him on Father's Day!! The kids had painted cards during the week and wrote about why they loved their daddy. Daddy bought some new running shoes for Father's Day..but he had to wait until they delivered them on Monday. On Saturday night Allie and I stayed up late to decorate the table. She loved helping mommy and she especially liked taking pictures of the table and telling mommy how to pose. On Sunday we made breakfast, gave daddy his cards, and headed to church. We enjoyed a yummy lunch after church at Chipotle and then relaxed at home for the afternoon. We headed to grandpa and grandma's house for a BBQ in the evening. We loved celebrating daddy, grandpa, and uncle John!

Our SECRET Treehouse

We have been loving bike riding lately. Everyone is at great ages to go on rides around town and not get too tired. I finally feel like it isn't a huge production to get out on a bike ride. Last Saturday we went on a family bike ride and checked out the "mysterious" tree house the boys could see from the road. It is a pretty cool tree house that someone created out in a field near our house. So Monday morning we woke up and the kids and I made a plan. We packed for the day and headed to the tree house on our bikes. Each of the kids brought along a book and after I got myself up in the tree with all of them, prayed the boards didn't break while I was sitting up there with my 3 kiddos, we spent time reading. It was wonderful and such a fun setting to do some of our summer reading. Andrew has been reading through the Magic Treehouse books, so it was the perfect place to read together. After our reading time we rode our bikes to the gym for a picnic lunch and a swim. As usual we caught up with friends at the pool and had a great afternoon swimming. We biked home and I had three very tired kiddos who had gotten some great exercise for the day. They did about 4 miles on their bikes and swam for 2 hours. We are LOVING our summer days this year!!!