Over the hill and through the woods to grandma's house we go...

We spent the 4th of July weekend up in Vale, Oregon with Ford and Bev. Josh's grandparents. I love Josh's grandparents and have adopted them as my very own. They do like to talk to me more than Josh! We caravaned up with Mark, Trudy, Jake, Lisa, Chase, Sdynee, Jeremy, and Laura. The ride seemed to take forever, although it might have been Elizabeth asking if we were there yet just about every 10 minutes!!! We had so much fun all weekend and Lisa and I took so many pictures. The trip was thoroughly documented! So much that I think everyone was getting sick of us taking pictures!

When we finally arrived Josh and Jake set up the tents. Yes we camped!! And yes Josh and Jake do know how to set up tents! I was surprised too, and they stayed up the whole time. We had two tents the small yellow one we stuffed all the kids in and the big one Josh, Jake, Lisa and I stayed in...(there are just too many comments I could make here...) Everyone else stayed in the house. Before everyone is so impressed at Josh for camping, we brought with us two air mattresses! So the adults all slept on air mattresses and we made the kids sleep on the ground. We are really good parents! The kids were so excited I don't know if they even noticed that they were sleeping on the hard ground.

During the day we just hung out on the farm. The boys cut the grass to make 3 or 4 golf greens and putted through the yard. Josh tried to teach Abby, but if you know Abby that only lasted for so long before she decided she knew more than Josh and wanted to do it her way! Chase I think mowed the lawn everyday and took all the kids for rides on the lawn mower. And of course I can't leave out Henry. I think my kids were just as excited to see Henry the dog that is as big as them then anything else. The girls took him for walks and I think that it was more like he took them around! On the second day we went to the suicide race in town and Lisa and I found our inner child and tried to see who could swing the highest. We had to stop because the sound of the swings braking made us a little nervous! On the third day we went to the rodeo. It was fun to watch, but the whole time my kids kept asking when we were going back to the farm, so we didn't stay for the whole thing.

My kids favorite part of the whole trip was swimming in the drain ditch, or whatever its called. They got their bathing suits on and jumped in, all except Abby it took her a while before she decided it was safe. I don't even want to know what is in that ditch, but they had so much fun and got really dirty. They spent most of the day in there, playing with mud, and heaven know what else. They all had mud covering them from head to toes. We had to drag them out at the end of the day so we could go to the rodeo, which might be another reason they didn't seem too interested in the rodeo.

On the second night the boys cooked dutch oven dinners for everyone. And I'm instructed to say that they did it all by themselves!!! With no help from us girls!!! Of course we had to keep nagging them to get it started so that we would be finished in time and we had to do some prep, but that doesn't really count I guess. (I really do love you Josh) Any who, the dinner was really good they did do a really good job, and it was fun watching them cook us dinner, they were very manly! They made us chicken and potatoes with bacon in it, and really how can you go wrong with anything that includes bacon! They also made a dutch oven candy bar cake, and I'll repeat myself, how can you really go wrong with anything including candy bars!!

On one of the nights Josh and Jake brought a projector and screen so that we could watch movies outside. The girls won out and we watched a chick flick! It was really fun. The kids found a frog and I found out that Sdynee is not afraid of anything...and my girls are! Elizabeth, who wants to do anything Sdynee does tried to hold it but once it touched her she would drop it, with a bit of a scream. The last night we roasted marshmallows and made smorses, because I'm not camping with out getting some smores! I do have some standards! On the last night we played "Night Games"! We played kick the can, capture the flag, and sardines in the dark. I have discovered that even though in my mind I can still move like I'm 16 this is not really true! I was kind of sad to find this out. I also discovered that Mark can really run!!! We had so much fun!

On the 4th we went to the Vale parade! I do have to say Elizabeth has finally learned how to do parades. She won on the candy grabbing! Abby however would get one candy not need any others until that candy was eaten! She hasn't really gotten the idea of saving! Elizabeth got a bloody nose that morning right after I put on her new 4th of July shirt, of course, so that is why she has blood on her shirt in the picture-she hasn't gotten that good at fighting off the other kids to grab the candy! Grandpa Ford came with us to watch the parade and it was fun to be there with everyone. I had so much fun that weekend and enjoyed being with family.