Blue Grass Parkway and Capital today :)

Those who know the area will be proud - I drove all the way down to ...hmmm can't remember the name of the bridge - went over the bridge and back up to University of Charleston and took this picture from the river side of the college to get the capital in the background - then found my way back to the other side of the river :) Kids were impressed when we were on the Kanawha Blvd and looked back at the college and realized where they had just been. :) (make sense?)

check out this action shot! He was bounding away from the crazy lady in the van... following him... :)
Can't get away from me and my camera............

Patrick and Rachel loved this shot!


She's till there - let's quietly walk away maybe she will forget we are here..

Why did you choose this part of the highway to stop and eat - the human is 'watching' us....

Palo Duro Canyon State Park, Canyon Texas 2009

We had such a nice time - and come to believe it's only 6+ hours from our home! It was beautiful.

The children had a really good time although the horse back riding the the big hit of the day.

The sky was amazing - the scenery beautiful and the show was super!

Rachel had to go around and get autographs from all the actors - she fell asleep before we made it back to the hotel - 15 minutes away! :)

If you ever get a chance to see the show it's worth it! The amphitheatre is IN the canyon - the canyon as a backdrop and when the fireworks go off at the end they reverberate through the canyon - it is so cool.

Twilight Camp

Patrick had such a good time. Scratch that - GREAT time! While it was miserable heat wise - we did have a breeze all week so 99 degrees wasn't as bad as we all knew it could be. :)

Five days of 3:30 9pm of complete boy scout fun with 230 campers! There were two adult leaders with each den...(scout rule - must always be 2-deep for safety purposes) then there were at least 2 leaders per activity plus 2 junior volunteers per activity - so.. like 300+ total.

The boys received numerous patches, belt loops and parts of larger achievements this week.

They worked in art, nature, woodworking, leather working, woodworking..again, archery, bb shooting (favorite of course) and games.

The schedule was fairly simple; arrive sit with your den through flag ceremony then on to first activity, second activity, dinner, third activity, fourth activity, announcements, taking down of the flag and then home.. and every night Patrick was asleep before his heat hit the pillow!

It was all so interesting - we learned (in Nature) how to make a compass Polar North vsTrue North. How to take readings with the compass - something I had never learned before...Goes back to that learning something new every day thing! :) Art Belt Loop - with cub scouts they typically have to do 3-4 items/activities to get a belt loop - with Webelos it's more like 5-8 items/activities to accomplish before you have achieved the belt loop.. this week - we did 7 of the 8 items for them to achieve the Art belt loop! Patrick just has to do one thing at home!

Leather working......I don't really want to think about it - b/c if I do - I can still hear the pounding and pounding that 21 boys can do all at the same time.

With 230 boys - we typically had 3 dens at each activity unless it was games then we most of the time had six dens coming together so it was a bit more fun to have soaked down sponge balls full of water being thrown at you! My fellow den leader was a mom I knew from school and she's a hoot - we had so much fun all week and are looking forward to next year! We will be working on our swaps too!

The boys had to have 'swaps' to exchange with each other. Now I had no idea what a swap is - this is my first Scouting Camp and we left town to head to KY right after school so time was out the window but we made the cutest thing... First of all - the boys need to wear a hat -b/c it's sweltering and well -it's TEXAS and Summer! so they had this cute idea of the boys swapping something they can pin on their hats! There was everything from Giant cockroaches to fishing lures, a number of people put felt and cotton balls together to make it look like a smores - (so cute) we ( I say we...it was me this year b/c we got home Sunday night and camp started Monday afternoon ) made a marshmallow on a stick - I took a white bead and put hot glue on a small stick and stuck the stick through the white bead to make it look like a marshmallow on a stick! - THEN hot gluing it to a pin so you can pin it on your hat.. well - needless to say - we will do something else next year and Patrick will be helping! :) It was fun and the boys were swapping from the time they got there till it was time to take the flag down.

Rachel and Peter came out one night during our dinner time and that was fun - Poor Rachel - she wanted to come out, wanted to be there - but as soon as she got there my little girl was totally miserable with the heat, the bugs and what?! You have to sit on a five gallon bucket for dinner? Yes - we carried those 5 gallon buckets everywhere -they were not on our seat for each station but we carried our water, our projects and anything else - Belinda had everything in her bucket.

We were supposed to sleep over on Friday but by the time Friday rolled around we were all pretty miserable so we declined - there was to be no breeze Friday night - and it's only getting down to the 80's at night so we came home and cleaned up and had ice cream to celebrate!

It was an impressive operation and I think there was only serious mishap the whole week. I think the ladies who put the whole thing together were very impressive and did a super job. We look forward to next year! The scouts are only Webelos two years then they move up to SCOUT ranking so.... the mommas get to enjoy it as much as we can now -b/c it becomes less parental involvement the next big move up.

Patrick is so cute - he told a man one day, "Do you know what my goal is? My goal is to be an Eagle Scout like my dad".... ah... tug on the heart strings why don'tcha....my sweet boy.

Camp Grammy

Well -I've not updated the blog in ages mainly because the blog is a 'happy place' for me and since the middle of April I've not been real happy - but I was thinking about it - even though our world is in much upheaval and big changes are in our future I still want to share all that is going on with me and the kids and not all that is going on is sad. AND I KNOW you want to see pictures of all the fun things we've been doing!

So enough about all that.. so today is the week we went to visit my mom and next blog will be Patrick's Webelos Twilight Camp.

When it comes to getting ready and driving to where ever we are going I like to be prepared. On the years when I have been prepared the trips it's just easy traveling. On the trips where I'm not as prepared - of course we are always out the door later than I want and am just throwing things in the car as we pull out of the driveway.... that was this trip! :) But that's another story - we were just so busy the whole 3 days before leaving for the trip ; kids Field Day at school, last day OF school, Scouts Night at the Frisco Rough Riders baseball game and then get up bright and early and head to Grammy's... it was just tough after those 3 days. This is our second year to take Goldie with us - she loves Grammy's dog Sage and Sage - being 12 years old puts up with (maybe even likes Goldie) (laugh)

It took 11 hours exactly to reach Grammy's house and the children love their rooms she has made up for them. Rachel's looks and feels so girly in pale yellow and accented with pink and dolls everywhere. ( I don't care for dolls - never really have except Mrs. Beasley) Rachel always wants to bring home all of them at the end of the week. :)

We immediately left and went to Camp Jellystone and began our time of camping. The children love it - and they love cooking with Grammy and roasting hot dogs and marshmallows. We went fishing (as you can see in the picture - they are missing a lot of rain - the pond was WAY down but the fish were there and biting) , played putt putt and watched movies when it rained. You have to love RV camping - it's made it so easy - #1 you drive into your camp site, hook up the water and set out the chairs - it's wonderful. #2 - time to leave, unhook the water, put up the chairs and pull away... :) Not like tent camping at all. Did I say it rained? My goodness it came a gully washer on the last night - thank goodness we were in a 10,000lb camper! The winds were 50-60mph and rain, lightning and thunder - I don't think the children even stirred - I kept waiting for them to come and get in bed with me b/c of the thunder and lightning but they just slept on. I am glad we were not in a tent.

We did get to pick blue berries - and I alone picked 5 pounds of blueberries at one bush! Rachel was complaining a bit when we got there and then after one minute she was fine - b/c she was eating blueberries left and right. :)

No real cooking this trip - just wasn't time. We did get to visit Aunt Betsy and Uncle Stephen and Baby Daniel - he's adorable and was infatuated with his big cousin Rachel... :) He didn't care for Patrick but he just kept watching Rachel -intently -following her from room to room and whenever she stopped long enough he was climbing on her. :) It was so cute. Daniel looks just like Betsy did at that age. Precious - and amazing blue eyes. - made me realize - no more babies...but I'll watch him any time. :)

Patrick and Rachel's cousin; 15 year old Calvin was visiting Grammy before we arrived so he stayed and drove home with us. Patrick and Rachel loved having him there. As a teenager he was no bother - except when you wanted him to wake up... ( lol) He's 6'1 1/2" and looked like a giant next to my kiddos!

Hmmm - I think that's about it - we are looking forward to Grammy coming to Texas and visiting with us next month before our big trip to West Virginia. We are going to try to get out to Palo Duro Canyon but I'll keep ya'll posted on that one. My friends Jennifer & Meg want to go to with her children so we are going to try to do it together. :)

Until tomorrow........ I'll be uploading Twilight Camp pictures!

Thanks for the well wishes and prayers.

Spring Cub Scout Camping Trip...

We ran out there on Friday and set up camp and finished today around 11 - it was supposed to go to 3pm but everyone was exhausted and we only had  20 boys - so when half leave early - it's hard to have a game of Mush Ball with 10 boys... so it was called off early.  

We had several storms come very close and then break up as they went over - it was good practice - you've never seen parents move so fast as to break things down and pack away before it hit.  It was great weather - except for the three close calls - in one afternoon / evening. - Our Saturday Camp Fire was cut short b/c of lighting and thunder - and then as we were all heading to the pavilion for cover - it all broke up and passed by us...  :)  Oh well - no black bad weather bead for these cub scouts.  (and mom  is glad) 

Our tent did not weather the storm well - it's not an all weather tent and I put the rain cover on upside down... (!?)  silly momma.  :)   I learned how to correctly and will do it correctly from now on.  I always think it's good to learn something new every day and Saturday was MY day! :)   

Rachel had a blast,  Patrick loved it - but of course did not  care that his sister was there and was very glad to see his Daddy pick her up on  Saturday.  :)  

We fished, they played with night crawlers, they roasted marshmallows, made smores, whittled, hiked, roasted hot dogs.  Lunch on Saturday Patrick and I made chicken fajita/cheese quesadillas for everyone - they were great and everyone loved them.  :) (I'm so glad)   You know you put so much stress on yourself for cooking for 16 and I think the quesadillas were super! 

The scouts had trash pick up at the camp grounds, exercise relays, flag football (cut short from lightning) flag ceremonies, rope knotting time and a couple of other things. 

Several of our boys crashed and burned on Saturday but Friday was Field Day at school and everyone got to bed late Friday and was up before dawn on Saturday! So they were so tired - and then football, relays and 85 degrees - so there were tears, hurt feelings  and just plain old crashing and burning...   We think they are  such big boys - but 9 years old is very young  when they are hot and exhausted and just physically and mentally spent.  Patrick didn't cry but he crashed in the middle of knot tying - so we went back to the tent and he slept for 2 hours!  I woke him  up for dinner and then he was asleep again by 9pm.  :)  It's 9:30pm Sunday night and I'm ready for bed!  :)   So I'm going to attach a couple of pictures and  hit the hay!  :) 

This past week... and Mother's Day

My two precious children ~ we had a wonderful Mother's Day.  :) 

My little 'cowgirl'.....

Rachel's piano recital... it was a Spring Jean Music .... something...  :) 

Patrick saved his money for several weeks to purchase a skate board!  

Scary for the mom but he's doing everything that is asked of him.

Out my kitchen window (which I love and am going to miss dearly) a pair of cardinals are setting up a nest.  They are continually bringing small pieces of everything in for the construction of their new home.. it's  very fun to watch.  This was at the end of the day and the light was fading but not too bad through the glass.  :)  But if you click on it and enlarge it - you can see the female while not as bight as the male is just as beautiful.  :)