We went camping with some friends over the weekend! We were there a total of 24 hours, yet managed to experience all of hot dog roasting, bocce ball, soccer, frisbee, buffalos, hiking, wild turkey gobblings, a potato sack race, playing in the dirt, smores, a really cold night’s sleep, and a solid game of cards. Don’t you love it when the weekend seems to last a lot longer than it should and it’s all jam packed with a lot of good stuff? I love weekends like that.
North Dakota is all sorts of interesting. Like this national park right here, Theodore Roosevelt NP with all it’s rock mountain formations, canyon crevices, and buffalo– nestled just a few hours from us smack in the middle of the rolling hills and flat fields of the Great Plains. I love it! And I reeaally love the buffalo.Our friends were so prepared. If we didn’t have something, they did. Including all these neat tricks to making the fire change colors. So fun!Oh what a cozy night. (Not really.) Well kind of, if you count the way we shivered up to each other trying to keep warm. Actually that sounds a lot worse than it was. Jake and I just spent half the night trying the keep the blankets on the kids and our own feet warm. I was too scared of the howling outside to leave the tent to get our hand warmers, so I got into Jake’s sleeping bag to get warm. That didn’t work so great. My feet warmed up, but I couldn’t move the rest of my body. After an hour of cramping I retired to my own bag. And it was probably just a dog! haha.The kids didn’t care that it was 40 degrees outside and that they went to bed late. They were up with the sun anyway. It was ok though, we had a whole day to fill!Then this! I would have been alright with oatmeal for breakfast, but how great is this!
Hyrum, off to pick flowers for me.
…and stomp on a buffalo pie.Then this one here, she is definitely my child. The strangest things fascinate me.Then we went on a hike without our hiking backpack for Hyrum, and Jake gave him quite the ride in the stroller. haha! Never forgetting that backpack again (hopefully.)Love these great friends!
Jake was so patient with Hyrum when all he wanted to do was sit and play in the dirt. He waited for him to sit in it, roll in it, sprinkle it in his hair and throw it in the air. And after a good 10 minutes we had to catch up to the rest of them. Hyrum screamed and cried. He loves dirt.
Then the kids came back to the campsite and played in more dirt. Hyrum even found another buffalo pie! It was a good day.
Got these potato sacks at a garage sale the other day. What fun! Joslyn has the video of all the adults racing in slow motion–the one where Jake is leaps ahead of everyone and I tried to match his first leap and totally bailed. It was great.
24 hours of good clean fun. We decided we need to do it again soon.
Rain or shine! (well, some of the time.) Alison moved in across the street last year, and we decided it would be a great idea to walk in the mornings together. So we have! We usually stop at a park along the way for the kids to play, and it has been such a great outlet for us to chat about anything and everything. She has become one of my dearest friends, that’s for sure.
This time we were caught in the rain while out for a walk, and we both just laughed and soaked it all in. Our shoes squeaked the whole way back.
I love seeing Ava wear the same dresses that my sisters and I wore when we were little. I really wanted to get some pictures of her wearing this one, so I bribed her with treats to get her to come outside with me in the hot, humid weather. She hardly lasted. But I will admit that she was a good sport for the ridiculous amount of mosquitos flying around our porch.
Ava got a special gift from a friend who was no longer using her play kitchen, and Ava has made sure to get plenty of use out of it. She takes our orders, calls her friends on the phone, and makes us all kinds of dishes like soup and macaroni and cheese. We are grateful for new toys and generous people.
