Camping!

We spent this past weekend camping at Crystal Grove campground in Oppenheim, NY. (I think the link is in a past post) As I think I mentioned before, we were celebrating my parents 40th wedding anniversary and the birthdays of my sister Eva, Aidan, and my BIL Christian. I think it was the first time my entire family was together in one place since Eva's wedding in May. We had a very good time, and everything seemed to work out--even the weather was rather cooperative! It only rained lightly and pleasantly while we were sleeping.

It took us about 3 hours to get there--We should have taken a picture of the car with all of our stuff and the kids and the dog crammed in there! I think if we are ever planning to be away like that for more than a couple days we might be forced to take two cars. That sort of seems to defeat the purpose of a family vacation of togetherness, but.... with this much family, I guess you don't have that much choice!

The kids had fun with some of the mining opportunities at the campground, where they had a diamond mine and sluice run. They came back with bags of cool rocks and gems-- a couple of the kids had arrowheads in their treasure. We didn't end up going to the rock mine, but the kids made friends with a family who gave them a bag of Herkimer diamonds they dug up and banged out of the rocks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herkimer_diamond I don't know how valuable the diamonds are, but they are pretty. Alannah figured out a way to create necklaces out of them and made them for all the kids in the neighborhood when we got back.

Other than that, we spent the rest of the weekend EATING (as if you can imagine with our family) and just hanging around. I mean, who else would you eat cheesecake for breakfast in the woods with? In addition to the cheesecake there was a chocolate cake, a yellow cake, chocolate chip cookies, a sausage smorgasbord, fresh corn and blueberries, and homemade pancakes. (burp!)

My one year old niece Stephanie was a major source of entertainment as was her dad who had never been camping before. We enjoyed watching his trepidation melt into joy at each new discovery of camp fun. He was a great sport trying all kinds of new things like sitting around a campfire, roasting marshmallows, and playing cards by kerosene lamp. He was very amazed at how big some of our tents were--he had really conjured up some scary ideas about camping! Josh was having fun terrorizing him with stories of REAL camping. You know, the kind where you take a blanket, hatchet and shovel with you into the wilderness? Shiver! We were pretty cushy where we were staying. Besides, Andrea was very merciful to Christian on his first time out and had rented one of the cabins.

Stephanie charmed us with her growing vocabulary. She would sit and point around the campfire and say everyone's name. When she did, everyone went "AWWWWW!!!!" Of course, most of us are either "grandma" or "eva" but who cares? The older kids were constantly running from the campsite, the playground, the field, the creek and the (of course) bathroom building. They made a funny parade: The kids, followed by more kids from around the campground, the dog, followed by Stephanie toddling after them and her mom and dad not far behind.

Us "grown up" parents just sat back and watched the show. (ha ha--wait til I put the pic of Scott up here!!!!)

It was over too soon.

Now we are home and finally suffering real Summer weather. It is hot and muggy--blech! But we are starting to get tomatoes to eat from our garden, so....happy Summer! How long do you think before I am sobbing about hating tomatoes? Heinz 57 got nothing on us.... yikes!

Our friend Julie is over today with a pile of bridal magazines she got for free at a thrift shop. Tonight is a pottery class at the library and tomorrow our friends Natalie and Sarah will visit! Yay! :)