Kim took the boys to Silverwood for one more time before school starts
They had lots of fun at the wave pool
And slides
Lots of smiles
Henry got to drive all by himself
Ice cream might be the favorite attraction
Starting with the frog jumper
Then Mason went on the bigger version (with Nixon)
Henry thought he was going to try it (but his nerves got the better of him)
Nixon on the trampoline with friends
Mason helped make gourmet caramel apples
Nixon's soccer team doesn't have a goal keeper so he volunteered to do it. I am sure he can do it but we will miss him scoring goals
We finished reading the Book of Mormon as a family. We have read it every day together without missing a day for longer than I can remember.
To celebrate we prepared a scavenger hunt for the kids to tell them what the reward would be for the family. They found a bunch of individual letters and had to unscramble them.
We are taking the family to Hawaii in November. They are really excited.
For Labor Day weekend I took the boys for our annual backpacking trip. The are we have gone the last two years has a wildfire near by so we had to choose another destination. We chose Crystal Lake. I thought that the drive would have to be better. I was wrong. It was just as bad but we eventually made it to the trail head. It had been raining and wet so we got a little muddy.
It was cloudy and cold when we started
Not so sure about this
It was only 2 miles, how hard could it be?
We started off with beautiful views of a valley
The hike wasn't the easiest and Henry was struggling so I had to carry his pack on and off
Nixon kept offering to help and was so positive
The trail was never very flat and there were lots of large rocks and difficult terrain
We pushed through though and enjoyed the views
We got to cross some small streams
This area was more foresty
Mason was a good hiking companion
Meanwhile Kim and Lyza were enjoying a girls' night out with delicious food
We eventually made it to the lake and it was beautiful
We were the only ones there and we settled on this spot to camp
We did hike past it to see if there was any more spots but we didn't find any and turned back because the trail was taking us away from the lake
It was hard to beat this view for a camp site
We had a gourmet meal of ramen (Henry), hot dogs (Mason), chicken alfredo (Nixon), and teriyaki chicken (Daniel)
We spent a long time collecting wood to burn, which was hard because everything was so wet. We did get a fire started though.
We even roasted some marshmallows
All ready for bed
We stayed dry and mostly warm through the night. We all slept better than years past (maybe the best so far).
The lake looked so peaceful in the morning.
Some hot chocolate to warm up
Breakfast of champions (pop tarts)
Then it was time to take down camp and head out
The boys all got pictures with the lake before we left
The views on the way out reaffirmed that we had made the right choice to struggle and be uncomfortable for a day while backpacking
Mason found a friend on the way out
A little break
We had a good trip
Henry had a goal for the summer to run 50 miles. He got them all finished on Labor Day!
Nixon helped make muffins to freeze and use for school lunches
We had a whole bunch of kids at our house milking out every last drop of summer
The boys had fun with Henry's helium birthday balloons
Summer passed by too fast. Now it is back to school and more structure and daily routines.
No comments:
Post a Comment