Through the eyes of an almost 6 year old:

Our Family

c.2009

Our Backyard Campout

Last night, we slept outside in the tent in the backyard.  All of us.  Usually when the kids want to do this, I let their dad be the fun one and am just fine sleeping in my own bed.  But I caved in and slept out under the stars (or at least airplanes).  This was our practice run for when we go camping this weekend up in Wisconsin.  We usually go camping at least once a year, but with Caleb being the ripe old age of 2 1/2, we decided that it might be a good idea to see what we’re getting ourselves into.

Caleb and I laid in the tent looking out the window at the fireflies (while Kelsie and Brandon tried to catch them) until he fell asleep.  It was so peaceful to just lay there and enjoy our backyard.  The fireflies are always something we look forward too each year and always try to catch as  many as we can.  Eventually the older two joined us in the tent and while Brandon held the flashlight, Kelsie read us a story. 

We all slept pretty good (at least as good as you can in a tent) and woke up to a little surprise.  Remember our friendly neighborhood cat?  Well, he was all curled up in a ball at the end of Brandon’s sleeping bag, snoozing with the rest of us.  Apparently we didn’t close the tent door all the way and he found his way in.  I’m just glad it wasn’t a racoon or a skunk.

So, the moral of my story is:

1)  If you’ve never camped out in the backyard, you must try it at least once.

2)  Remember to close your tent door all the way unless you want some unwelcome visitors to spend the night with you.

MIA

Whew!  These last few weeks have gone by so fast here that I have barely had enough time to catch my breath, let alone blog.  Here’s a quick report of what has been going on here in our little corner of the world.

We officially have a “tween” living with us now.  We celebrated Kelsie’s birthday with a small family party this year.  And it rained most of the day.  Bummer.  She loves being another year older and got (almost) everything she wanted.

Wally spent a week away from us in Europe and had a fabulous time.  He enjoyed the time he had to play tourist in Amsterdam and Maastricht, but in the end decided that there really is no place like home.

The day after Wally got home from Europe, his brother and his family came for a visit from Iowa.  We had so much fun hanging out and playing with them.  It’s always fun to have cousins around and Caleb couldn’t get enough of his new favorite cousin, Caroline.  I also just have to mention how much more fun Chicago is in the summertime.  So.much.fun.

Since strawberry picking is on our list of things to do this summer, and since it is such a short season, we decided to drive up to Wisconsin just before the 4th of July and picked 12 quarts of strawberries.  Caleb ate the berries faster than we could pick them and everyone ended up with juice stains all over their shorts, but we had a great time and had lots of fun together.  We were even excited to get a $0.49 ice cream cone at McDonald’s before we headed home.

 

Then came the 4th of July.  It is one of my most favorite holidays, so we went to just about everything we could.  The parade was fun, even in the rain, and the fireworks on the beach were great (it stopped raining by then).  The kids had fun with sparklers, glow sticks, friends, and fireworks at the end of the day. 

 

A few days later, Wally’s parents came out to visit and watch our kids while we went down into Chicago for a couple of nights to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary.  We had a great time together, without any kids and they had tons of fun without the parents.  They were able to eat as much chocolate, donuts, and chips as they wanted and play as much video and computer games to their hearts content.  Just the way it should be when Grandma and Grandpa are in charge!  I have tons of pictures from our little jaunt into the city—I’ll have to post those later.

In between all of this we have also been doing a little bit of:

reading:

crafting:

taking care of bumps, bruises, and boils:

and getting as much play time in as we can!