A little before-school "excursion"...

So, a few weeks ago, before Cameron started school we

went on a little "excursion". I had been wanting to do something

special with just him while he was still on summer break and realized

that I was quickly running out of time... So I enlisted the help

of a few friends and we got to go horseback riding!

At the beginning of summer Cam had mentioned that "someday"
he'd like to ride a horse but had never gotten to yet...
So when I asked him what he'd like to do for a fun day (and in
all seriousness he said "I've always kinda wanted to go to Hawaii...")
I made the executive decision to come up with something on my
own ;)
Here's a close up of Matrix, the horse I got to ride.
And here is Daisy, the horse my friend rode.
My friends were so sweet! We got to the barn and they had all
the horses groomed/saddled so we could just get right on with our ride,
and when we got back and they did all the work then too! Get that helmet on! Safety first ;)

Cameron leading Bo, the horse he got to ride.

And he's up! Btw, truck beds make amazing mounting ramps...

My picture of Me and Matrix...

Here we go!

The trail we went on.

Walkin' walkin' walkin'...

:D He's so cute!!! :D

Some of the beautiful scenery.

We even got to run for a while! :D And then Cam

couldn't wipe the smile off his face!

Headed back.

Wraya on Scout. :D I like these two as a riding pair...

My horse decided he was going to leave the group...

So I got a cool picture of them behind me :)

And back at the barn.

We got to ride for over an hour!

And they would have taken us much farther but since
Cam had never been on a horse, and I didn't want him sore for

football, and I was supposed to be back in Dixon...

:D Some horse-y companions welcomed us back.

Thanks so much Samantha, Wraya, and Shayna for a

really fun morning!
You girls are the best!

VBS at the Refuge, 2010!

Okay! So here are some pictures from the VBS that the

Refuge held a few weeks ago! There are quite a few pictures

so I won't be real "wordy" on this post, I'll pretty much just

title the photos.Here's the Bible verse that the kids were trying

to memorize during the week.

Joshua 1:9.

One of their crafts.

These were "trumpets"...
Song time.

Oooohhh, some snack supplies! :D

Story time.

Explaining the game.

There were a whole bunch of bent soda cans and juice

bottles and the kids had to try and build as tall of a structure

as they could. It was supposed to symbolize that nobody is

"perfect" but everyone can still work together and everyone has

a unique place.

Kinda neat...

How do we do this??

Oh Yeah!!! We have the most awesome VBS EVER!!!

We hype the kids up on Red Bull!! :D:D:D

Can this go here??

Craft time. Setting up the snack plates.

Snack time!

Aww, it's so cute!

A little teddy graham campsite!

We happened to see Wolfgang and Robbie one day :D

The theme of the week was to be active in telling other

people about Jesus, so each day the kids would decorate

a foot and we would tape them to the window! At the end
of the week we had almost all the windows in the activity center full!

Story time.

"T the awesome snack lady" getting the snacks ready!

Craft time.

Well it was fun! Hope you enjoyed the pictures! :)

Our Campout...

So, last week while VBS was going on, Karley and Cameron

stayed at our house. And Jess and Jen stayed at T's house.

So Rach and I gave the grandparents a break and had a campout

in our backyard with the kids!Complete with tent and all!
We decided that it would be "more fun" for the kids if we had
them all help us get the tent set up ;)

We had a campfire and s'mores planned but figured

we should wait until it got dark to start the fire. So we played

all the outdoor "kid games" we could think of!

We played "Spud", "Mr. Fox", "Red Rover", "Sardines",

and "Hide-n-Seek". And that kept us busy until the sun

went down!

Since we don't have a fire pit I made our "campfire" in our grill.

:D And it actually lit!

Rach and Aunt Amy were teasing me that we were

going to have to eat microwave s'mores because they weren't

sure I could build a decent fire...

We ate way too many s'mores... But it was great!

Cousins!

Before we settled in for the night I made everyone put

on an extra layer of bug spray.

Crystal was taking pictures so I had to try and look "cool"... ;P

I've heard somewhere that the average person ingests quite

a few bugs a year so I took some extra precaution with this

wonderful 'breath spray'... Just kidding!

Yes, the tent started looking awfully small when we were all

piling in... awfully small...We were pretty crammed, and me, Miss "don't breathe on me

I get claustrophobic" got to sleep in the middle... :]

It was close in there, but they slept pretty well. I got a nightful

of stargazing?? :D

Aanndd before we knew it morning was there, and the beautiful

sun was shining!

We had a good time, and I'm pretty sure the kids enjoyed it too! :)