Day 4 of Vacation - Monday

Monday we went down to the beach, only to find they had cleaned it, which actually left the shallow water full of icky dead leaves, but the kids didn't care. There aren't any pictures of Max because he was underwater most of the time swimming around. And Alex wasn't with us but off doing something else. Eric, Oliver and Henry played in the sand, even making what became a sort of sand chair.


Here's Sophia with her sandcastle and floaty moat.


Also on Monday a pontoon was rented. Here are the kids on my first pontoon ride of the day. L-R are Max, Timmy, Henry, Sophia, Kelli and Oliver. Uncle Bob was nice enough to let the little kids drive the boat and honk the horn, which of course was wonderful to all of them.

Vacation -Days 2 & 3

Saturday and Sunday were big swimming days. You can see a group of us swimming, Sophia relaxing in the water and Uncle Chris helping Henry and Oliver make a sand castle.


Sunday started with hair cuts. Maybe more of them than Aunt Donna meant to do, but she was a trooper and cut all our boys hair. Timmy needed it the most by far. This is the before picture.


Here he is while he was cooperating during the hair cut, it didn't go this easy the whole time.


Here he is, all done.


Here's Henry getting a haircut with the help of Aunt Sara and Dora (on her kindle).

Vacation!

As most of you know for 7 summers now we have gone to a camping resort with a large chuck of Randy's family. Each year we go to a different state, this year we went to Michigan. We arrived Friday, July 13, and stayed until Friday, July 20. Then our own little family took the long way home, to extend our vacation. We had a great time in Michigan with everyone!! Here's the first day.

Our family pulled out of our driveway at 4:00 am (that Friday). That was our goal and Randy and I were both impressed we made it. We talked to Sara and Eric twice on the way. The 2nd time was in MI, only to discover that we were only 4 miles behind them. So we met up at a gas station and let the kids out to see each other and run around, then loaded everyone up for the what was left of the trip (about an hour).

That night at the resort we got pizza and then walked down to see the beach. It started as a look at the beach, but ended up with Alex and Max getting their suits on and going down the water slide. And the littler kids all getting wet.

Timmy on the tire swing

No explanation needed .

I guess I got you all caught up on Randy's week off. Wednesday we spent some time at the library.Thursday we geocached, and one day we went to the mall. There is an indoor play place for Sophia, Henry and Timmy. Alex and Max walked around the arcade nearby for a little. We were also able to eat outside quite a bit. In true vacation form I showered just in time for lunch.





The kids have swam a lot this summer. This is the first day we got our pool out. I didn't know how Timmy would do. But he fit right in and splashed around with everyone.



Left to right is Henry, Alex, Sophia, Timmy, Max, Alex(our neighbor) and Alex's brother Jake.





Here's everyone enjoying popsicles after the pool.

Fireworks

Sunday of Randy's vacation all the neighborhood kids played together in the kiddie pools. Monday we had lunch at Kathy's and then we were suppose to go to a baseball game, but I didn't feel good so we stayed home. Alex was very disappointed, but Max was glad - you can never please everyone. :) Then Tuesday, the town of clay did fireworks at Great Northern Mall. So we met some friends there and enjoyed the display.



Here's Timmy all ready for the fireworks to begin. I didn't know if he'd like them, but he seemed to really enjoy them.He didn't cry, but instead sat mesmerized.



Here is Alex and Ben waiting for the show to begin. Can you believe they're in long sleeves and long pants? It was in the 60's! It was actually perfect for an evening outside.



Here's Max chowing on popcorn. Henry, who liked the fireworks, but the big bangs were his least favorite part.He covered his ears for a lot of them and sat on Randy's lap just to be safe. And next to Henry is our friend, Zachary.



Here's Zachary, Sophia, Caleb and Anna eating their s'mores our friends made.



Here's the group shot.

Randy's vacation at Home (Day 1)

Randy had June 23 - 30 off. So we tried to find some fun around Liverpool to do. Here's the first day.


We started Randy's week off with letting the kids camp out in the back yard. To complete the camp out we had breakfast in the back patio. Aunt Kathy also came over for breakfast and some puzzle doing.







That Saturday there was also a little community fair. There was a firetruck, people flying large model airplanes, and classic cars to look at. (For some reason the website didn't keep my picture in the order I put them so my narrative is out of order, but I have kids begging for breakfast and I think you're all smart enough to figure it out.;) ). There was also a bounce house and bounce slide, you see Max sliding down. There were a dozen penny games. They cost a penny to play and you got a piece of candy for playing. Well, you got the candy if you got there earlier than we did. Most of the games were out of candy. Alex is doing the spider web challenge, you try to get through the web of string w/o touching them. Henry is knocking over a tower of cans. The next one is Timmy and Max, playing peek-a-boo in a tunnel that's part of the playground equipment. Lastly, Sophia with her balloon butterfly. After a warm day at the fair the kids came home and ran back and forth between our kiddie pool and the neighbor's.

O, how embearesing I cant sspellll aything ! - Sorry about all the typos in the geocaching post. Opps!

Geochaching

Randy had the last week of June off from work. So one of the things we did was geochaching. In case you don't know geochaching is a big treasure hunt. If you go online there are geochaching websites that give you cordinaces that you download on a GPS (for walking), plus there is usually some kind of a clue, then you go to that spot and look for the chache. The library here has geochaching kits,they come with the GPS, and some information to explain how to do it. The library also then hid 5 chaches in Onondaga Lake Park. So Wednesday we went to the library and checked out the kit and Thursday we went out. I didn't know if the kids would like it but they loved it! The library chaches were small rectangular boxes, that when you found them you could take a prize and leave a prize. So with 5 chaches to find it was perfect for our family, all the kids had a chance to pick a prize. They were just little things Henry got a matchbox car, Sophia got a pink princess balloon, ect. This day is what I have pictures of. The first two pictures are after our first find. Everyone is having a goldfish water break and checking out the prize box with Randy. The last picture is after the 4th find. You see Henry is asleep, we had to split our search into two sections one before lunch, one after. On the ride back to the park after lunch is when Henry fell asleep, and just wouldn't wake up for our 4th find. :)

Then yesterday (the 4th of July) we braved the heat and did some more geochaching. This time Aunt Kathy came along, which made it that much more fun, and we found chaches that were just out in the community. This time we found 3 of the 5 chaches we were looking for and these chaches were little magnetic boxes (the kind you would hide a spare key in at your house), and inside were tiny log books. These were just as fun. And Aunt Kathy was nice enough to sweeten our hunt with ice cream along the way.

The rest of our 4th all the kids, but Alex swam in our kidding pool, we grilled and Randy set off a few fire works. Happy Belated 4th of July!!!

Camping (Still catching you up)

Both Father's Day weekend and the weekend after that Alex, Max and Sophia camped in our tent in the backyard. They had so much fun.
You can see everyone helped set up the tent. But then about 8, the 3 oldest went out to play games together until Randy went out at 9:30 or 10 to say flashlights off. We were astounded at how well the kidos got along. It was truly amazing.

Sharing our fun a little bit at a time.

I have been avoiding updating the blog because I feel like we've done a lot in the last few weeks. So it feels overwhelming to think of dealing with everything. Not to mention I get tired. :) So I've decided I'll share all our fun in little bits at a time. I'll start with Father's Day.


Here's everyone surrounding Randy as he receives his Father's Day cards they made for him. Later we had a dinner of all the foods we thought he'd like out on the back patio. It was a low key day.