Lower Falls Camping Day 2

Our second day camping was September 1st.  Crazy how time flies.

The kids played cops and robbers with their bikes and walkie talkies.  Evelyn is "in prison" in this photo.

Then we explored above the falls making sure everyone stayed back from the edge.  

Max and Ryan said they were able to play the best game of pooh sticks ever.

Evelyn made friends with the kids one campsite over and we all ended up swimming upstream from the falls where it was calmer.  

Tony and I thought it was funny that our giant puppy sat in the booster when we drove to fill our water container from the pump well.

More swimming and rock skipping and cairn building.

Avi loved hunting chipmunks and squirrels.

In the evening we had a talent show.  Ev, Jase and Max showed off different bike tricks, Ryan mimed, I transformed into Mrs. Googley Eyes and Tony did a comedic stick balancing act.  Then we tried Cone s'mores and told run-on campfire stories.

Lower Falls Camping Day One

Dragon was helping Evelyn get ready for our camping trip.

View of Mt. St. Helens

We stopped at a rest area and Evelyn ran back to the car so that Dragon didn't miss exploring.

Then we got to our campsite at Lower Falls (on the Lewis river).  After setting up camp, we explored the falls.  

Then we had tin foil dinners that we had baked the day before and just needed to be heated up.  We also enjoyed dump cake.

Herb Garden

I've wanted to do an herb garden but I'm not good at keeping them watered correctly.  I found these containers that have an indicator on the side that shows when they need water and you just add it to the reservoir.  Now we are growing cilantro, basil and chives.  

 

Goals Smashed

 We have a new goal board and art board.  I should take a better pic of the goal board, but here's the best I have.  It has four sections to go with the youth goals at church:  spiritual, intellectual, physical and social.  Each of us writes down our goal for the week in each section and post it to the board.  

Total aside:  the art board is a huge magnet board we got from our friend.  This picture was taken when it was first hung up and didn't have art on it yet.  

Our set of goals included Jason and Evelyn wanting to go around the whole circle of monkey bars at our park.  This was a huge deal for them because they always wanted my help.  Like I always do with monkey bars, I told the kids that when they go all they way across they get to go to menchies.  Both Jase and Evelyn set the goal to go halfway around.  They said they would practice 3 times that week at the park.  Wouldn't you know that the next time we went to the park they both went all the way around right away when they absolutely wouldn't go more than two rungs before?  They smashed it.  I didn't have my phone to get pics at the park and Tony was the one to take Jase to Menchies, but I have a pic of Evelyn enjoying her reward.

Library Curbside Pickup

 I wasn't hit hardest by the pandemic when they announced the school closure (because it was supposed to be temporary), but when they announced libraries were closing?  Oh man, it got real.  Our family loves the library.  I even had free passes selected so we could go to a few museums (library perks).  We did not go to the Seattle Aquarium or the Art Museum with those passes.  Everything shut down.  You couldn't return books or pick up books.  So weird.  Now, they have library curbside pick up.  We can still put books on hold and when they're ready, we pick a time (on the app) to go pick up our books.  We call the number, let them know we're there and they come out with our books in a bag, wearing a mask and put it on a table near our numbered parking spot.  Such a different time.  Thankfully, we can still read all of our favorites.  I even found the perfect spot for library books in our new house.  I like to keep them separated so they don't get forgotten about.  Now they are well displayed, read, loved and not put away on our bookshelves.