Rain

The Doctor Reverend read to us from Ephesians on the first night. He tried it again on the second night, but it didn't quite work out. Check out the video below and experience what it's like to sleep under a tarp in the rain...

Bunk Buddies

Rain was expected all weekend and it did rain some, but almost every time it would rain we'd be under a tarp. Perfect timing! Dad had to secure our tarp in the beginning to make sure it would keep up for us.

Because it was so damp, a fire was hard (okay, impossible) for us to get. Whenever we had down time we admired Ben's real-deal Chacos. He has a love-hate relationship with them. Dad wasn't sure if he should bring the camp stove, but thankfully he did! He and Mom went camping on their honeymoon (niceee) so this camp stove is straight from 1981! Does it usually flame up that high and hard? No. We had a gas spill and the whole stove and rock that it was sitting on caught on fire. Awesome. Smokey the Bear would not be happy with us.Every night we threw the bear bag up in the tree far from any hungry bears.It's takes some strategy.Ben would chunk the bag in the air and at the same time Dad would pull the rope super fast and tight and then tie it to the tree! Works like a charm.Bunk buddies!! Tight spaces under the tarp. We learned that Ben's snore sounds something like a bear. It kept us on our toes.

Happy Campers

On the first day of the camping trip, Dad forgot to set his alarm so the take off time was 2 hours later than expected! This picture is posted for one reason: for you to take a nice, long look at Dad's socks and sandals.

Dad's praying for the trip and Mom is getting in one last hug from her boyfriend. How cute!

Making sure we knew where we were goingRight before we hit the trail! We were ready to go.
Sibs! Nice view too.We filled up all of our water bottles at the tiny waterfall. The water was really cold.The hike was a killer. We were all struggling. Some of us wondered if we had suddenly developed asthma late in life.Home Sweet Home at Deep Gap.Purifying the water. 7 drops of Clorox to 5 drops of hydrogen peroxide. We thought we stumbled upon a model walking up the trail, but it turned out to just be Benji collecting fire wood.

Honor Cord

Studying really hard for 4 years eventually pays off with an (awesome, probably super expensive)honors cord. This was after the cording ceremony 2 weekends ago. Hi, Ben! The cord is only good for one thing...practicing double dutch!

Another graduate in the fam! Here's our family friend, Dylan, he's still in shock that he received his Master's Degree. Actually Mom just caught him off guard. Get this, Dylan graduated with Wes a couple of years back and now with Kait. Maybe he'll go back to school and graduate with Ben? Let's keep the tradition up.Here's the fam that could make it. Are we loving the colors here? One side in green shades and the other in blues.Smooches from MomThe sibs. Anna is next!!

Don't Cry Over...

Spilt coffee! Some one's hand-eye coordination is getting a little shaky. Usually dinner ends with a phone call or an event that someone has to go to... this time it was coffee grounds everywhere!

S'more

It's that time again!!! Camp time. Some of us are hitting the trail again for s'more camping. But let's clarify... camping means packing all of your food and finding water in streams and purifying it. Real camping. The team is the smallest team we've ever taken: Dad, Ben and Kait. All of the personalities are alike so we'll see how it all works out. We probably need a chipper Wes/Mom/Anna personality to balance us out. Here's Dad rounding up all of his material. We also like to torture Chips with fancyschmancy men's camping underwear (we're told they've never been worn) Okay, maybe we're a little weird, but it makes life interesting! Departure time is 6AM tomorrow! Have you checked the weather? Forecast: rain, rain and more rain.

MOM

Mother's Day lunch was fun! We'd like to give credit to the following people...

Anna: Cooking lunch and dessert
Ben: Wrapping Mom's present and doing the after-lunch dishes
Kait: Purchasing the supplies needed
Dad: Funding the party
Mom: Being an awesome Mom for 24 1/2 years
Anna with her lovely and tasty lemon squares! We LOVE Mom!

Arky Arky

There was a beautiful rainbow the other day! Everybody sing along with us, "The Lord said to Noah: there's gonna be a floody floody..." .... "He built Him an arky arky, built it out of gopher barky barky.." If you don't know that song you either a) never went to Vacation Bible School or b) your VBS never had a Noah theme. Click here to listen to the song. It's a classic.During the week, around 5:30, you will often find us out on the back porch talking and enjoying the nice weather.Life is good!

Pack it up Move it out

The plan was to move Kent&Kait's stuff out of the garage over the span of a week or so. A lot of the things have been piling up over the last couple of months and the parental units haven't said much about it...until Saturday morning...Dad went to get the lawn mower, but it was stuck behind furniture. So, he called up the forces and a mandatory Moving Day was quickly underway. Wes brought a huge truck and they packed it all up. We have more pictures of the day, but Pops is shirtless and we want to keep our blog rating at PG. We especially don't want any of the women who read this to stumble over his amazing bod.First appliance opened... the Toast-R-Oven!First visitors! Youth group people! It's probably a good thing that Moving Day was officiated by Dad. It was stressful and fast paced so there was no time for I-can't-believe-I'm-moving-out-I'll-miss-you-guys-tears.

Starbucks

We made it to Philly with just one stop, but on the way back we had a few more stops thanks to a Starbucks stop! Some people (coughsaracough) need frequent breaks after large amounts of fluids. No worries though! The trip home went by quickly. Dad drove all the way up and then most of the way back. Wes finished off the last 2 hours.When we got home Chips was so excited to see us. He hadn't been in the car for hours and hours so he hopped right in and was ready to go!

Hula Hoop

We stayed with Robin while in Philly and she has a Wii! We ended our trip with a Wii Night. We each gave it a try. Robin made sure we had the strap around our wrist everytime we used the controllers. Good idea because we probably would've chunked that controller straight into the tv. We really got into the games!!Lean, lean, lean!! Kait was the worst player, hands down.Mom plays Wii Fit in a dress. Niceee.Sara tried really hard to beat Kent's hula hoop record.. she came close, but not quite! Wes was a good leanerKent was a rockin hula hooper!