Birthday Bonanza!

It's been a jam-packed 5 days since Ari turned 7!  Things kicked off on his birthday on Friday.  Keenan spent the day at Ari's school as a part of the Watch D.O.G.S. program.  Asher, Keira and I brought them lunch from Sonic and it was such a treat to have lunch as a family on a school day!  Once at home, Ari opened the two packages he had received from my family.  Both contained new Lego sets and he was so excited.  In fact, he was so excited he opted for take-out over going out to eat so he could keep building away!  He finished one set that night and the other took most of Saturday.

Saturday I spent prepping for his party that evening.  Ari settled on a pirate theme which went well with the obstacle course and water slide we had planned.  

 

Keenan put together an impressive course.  There was the over and under, around the sea-saw (get it?), walking the plank (balance beam), through the tunnel, shooting the cannon (hitting a ball off the tee), up the rock climb, down the slide and finishing off with the water slide.  It was just the thing for 7 boys (plus a few siblings)!

 

 

 

After plenty of obstacle course time and a hot dog dinner, we pulled out the pinata.  All I can say is that was our first and last pinata and I'm so grateful no one was hurt!  My nerves were shot!

 

 

The evening was topped off with individual brownie cups.  Apparently Ari doesn't like cupcakes anymore.  It did make for less work on my end, though!

 

Sunday was spent recuperating and more Lego building.  Ari received 6 more sets from his friends and as of today he only has one left to build.  Can you say Lego Maniac?!?  After school on Monday we went straight to the doctor for Ari's well-check.  I ended up combining this appointment with Asher's 2.5 year well-check and luckily no one had to get shots!  Both boys are healthy and growing.  From there we quickly came home, ate dinner, changed and headed out to Ari's second coach-pitch game of the fall season.  Coach-pitch has been a big transition over t-ball.  Ari's hard work and dedication paid off when he got his first hit that night followed by scoring a run.  He earned himself the game ball!

I think the birthday buzz is slowly wearing off at this point.  He's still had a trickle of cards come in the mail which is always fun.  Oh!  I didn't even mention that we had a pre-birthday celebration last week when Keenan's parents were in town!  They brought Ari a neat gift - a how to make your own stop-motion animation book and a pack of clay to get started!  As soon as we get the right equipment I'll be sure to post his first masterpiece!

Happy Birthday to our sweet, silly, smart seven year old!  We love you :)

#300 - One for the Books!

A while back I noticed I was creeping up on my 300th blog post.  I haven't made a big deal of milestone posts in the past, but thought it'd be fun this time around.  I hadn't come up with a good topic as of post #299, but luckily our annual camping trip this past weekend provided just the right material!  (This may get long!)

Our previous camping trips with the Bilberry family have occurred around the first weekend in October in different state parks in Arkansas.  They have all been on the cool side, but still lots of fun.  This year we bumped the trip up to Labor Day weekend and it was a hot one!

We arrived at Petit Jean about an hour after the Bilberries and got to work setting up camp.  We debated putting up the rain fly - if we didn't, there would be much more air flow, but then there's the chance of scrambling to put it on in the rain and possibly in the dark.  We erred on the side of caution and put it on.  About 20 minutes later the rain came down!  It was a heavy rain, but only lasted about 15 minutes.  With the rain came some cooler air and we enjoyed a perfect camp evening watching the kids play in the mud and roasting hot dogs, brats and s'mores over the fire.

 

 

 

 

 

After breakfast the next morning we ventured out on a hike before it got too hot.  This short trail led us over "turtle back rocks" and into "Rock House Cave."  We really wanted to see the waterfall the park has to offer and found a way onto an adjacent trail to make it over there.  This took us from the "easy" trial to the "moderate to hard" trail - yikes!  The kids never batted an eye, but my mommy nerves were tested as we walked near cliff edges and down a rocky slope to get to the observation deck.  As we all said - it was so worth it!  Lots of beautiful views everywhere!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After our hike, we drove to the waterfall overlook point for those who are less adventurous to get a different angle.  The guys decided they really wanted to do the hike that takes you to the bottom of the waterfall.  The only kid that was still up for it was Kadyn - what a trooper!  Darci and I kept the kids busy back at our campsite and with a visit to the playground.  We all returned to camp at the same time for lunch.

By this point it was heating up again and the heat was affecting everyone's attitude.  We decided it was time for a dip in the pool.  This was just what we all needed!  Well, except for Asher who decided he was much happier napping in his stroller in the shade.  An hour in, there was a rumble in the distance and the lifeguards made everyone get out.  Looking around, the weather seemed fine.  Just one dark cloud off in the distance.  It was almost 4 so we decided to call it good, go get some ice cream and wait out the rain.  Luckily we had the radio on in the car and they kept breaking in with severe weather alerts.  We talked with the people at the ice cream parlor & they confirmed that we were under a warning until 4:45.  As we finished our ice cream, the rain started to fall.

The warnings on the radio indicated 60 mph wind gusts, heavy rain and hail potential.  We decided it'd be best to wait out the storm in the safety of our cars in front of our campsite in case we needed to catch our tents.  As we pulled up, the storm let loose.  Our tent was only staked in 4 corners and the first gust popped one right out.  Keenan and I looked at each other and he dashed out of the car into the tent to keep it from blowing away.  All I could do was stare and pray as I watched all 4 stakes pop out with each gust and the tent get whipped around in the wind and rain.  Ari yelled out, "Go Daddy!  You're the hero!"  Our friends' tent location proved to be the better spot only suffering from the rain.  Our kids asked to watch a movie and I decided that was a good idea to keep them distracted.  The storm only lasted about 15 minutes, but there were some heavy bursts of rain and wind and some small hail.

As the rain let up, everyone in the area came out to assess any damage.  One RV had it's awning broken from the wind.  We were 2 of 3 tents in the area and many of the RVers came to check on us.  If you notice in the first picture up top, the right 1/3 of our tent is a screened in porch.  This is where we had our suitcase and towels - all soaked!  The inside of the tent itself only had minor drips.  Things could have definitely been worse! We checked the radar and it looked like there was a good possibility more storms would be rolling through later that evening/night.  Not wanting to chance it with the kids, we packed up as fast as we could and headed to a nearby town for dinner and a hotel.

After an awesome dinner of burgers and beer, we tried to get settled in the hotel.  Keenan took the kids up to get showered while I used the restroom in the lobby.  When I got to the room they were all just sitting around.  Keenan explained that he had gotten everyone undressed and pulled back the shower curtain to find a pile of wet towels!  At that same moment, Asher peed on the floor!  He had everyone get dressed while he called the front desk.  As he's filling me in, Asher pees again in his last clean, dry outfit.  Keenan thought he'd skip the diaper since he'd just gone and we'd be moving rooms shortly.  Oh well.  The good news is we were upgraded to a suite, got everyone cleaned up, clothes out to dry, a good night's sleep and a hot breakfast in the morning.

We had an uneventful drive home and set up camp again in our backyard to let everything dry out.  It was certainly one camping trip we will always remember!