Peter and Kelsey's camping trip

Peter and Kelsey spent Friday night camping with Sam, Sara, and Alex. They had a great time playing in the river, eating good food, making smores, and getting to sleep in a trailer! Sam made the trip very easy for them, as he had everything they needed!

Happy 11th Birthday, Kelsey!

Kelsey had a wonderful birthday - thanks to all of her amazing friends and family! She celebrated by having a few friends over for a sleepover Thursday night, having her cousin Sara slee pover on Sunday night, going shopping with Grandma, and then going out for dinner tonight and passing out cupcakes to all her friends after soccer practice tonight. For her actual party she went swimming, out for pizza, and then to Sky High. I was amazed at how well all 7 of the girls got along, even though several of the girls didn't know each other. It is the first party that we've hosted where there wasn't a single issue between any of the girls! It was so refreshing :). Kelsey and Sara walked up to Bethany Village together, watched a movie, and had birthday maple bars waiting for them in the morning. Kelsey loved her time with Grandma and came home with clothes and two pairs of Toms (Kelsey's very favorite shoes!). Peter and I "finally" got her a cell phone. Now that she is in middle school we thought it would be good for her to have a phone. She was very surprised because we had been telling her that she wasn't going to get one. I can't believe our baby is 11 years old already, and she is almost as tall as me!!

Saturday Market

My friend Tina and I took a group of McKenzie's friends to Saturday Market this weekend after the girls had a campout in Maddie's backyard the night before. I haven't been to Saturday Market in years, so it was really fun to wander around and look at all of the fun shops and do a little people watching. The girls wanted us to take pictures of all of them together, so Tina and I took lots of pictures. When they were posing for one of the pictures, a group of about 10 runners came by and one of the guys jumped into the picture, posed for about 2 seconds and then ran off - it was really funny! All of the girls got henna tattoos. As soon as Maddie finished getting her tattoo, Maddie and McKenzie were posing for a picture. McKenzie put her arm around Maddie and completely smeared the whole tattoo. We were all laughing because the henna stuff looks very similar to something else...so we had fun teasing McKenzie about it - she was a good sport!

Family Camp 2011

We had a blast at family camp this weekend! Every summer our church rents out spaces at Nehalem Bay State Park for a huge gathering. There were 500 of us there this weekend! We all loved it - it is nonstop fun with friends for 3 days, and the weather was perfect. About 20 of us from our life group get a group of sites together, and we eat together, play lots of games, have bonfires, make baked cinnamon apples, etc. We celebrated our friend Molly's 50th birthday by bringing a cake and a decorated walker for her. During family camp there are a few organized activities for the families to participate in if they want to. Conner's group won the sandcastle contest by making a fire, roasting marshmallow, graham cracker, and Hershey chocolate out of sand :) They won lots of candy and a little sand shovel. Conner made some new friends and built his friendships with some people he had hung out with in the past. He ended up spending the entire weekend with all these kids, so we hardly saw him! They all rode into Manzanita and went out for pizza and milkshakes. McKenzie's best friends were all there, so she had a blast. When we left, she said that she wished we all could just live there together :) Kelsey also had a ton of fun with her friends and loved being a middle schooler at family camp this year. Each night the middle school and high school kids get to go to "night games" on the beach where they are on the beach from 9:30-11:00 playing crazy games.

What made this trip even more enjoyable this time was we rented an RV from our friends. We've decided we will never go tent camping again. Having an RV makes camping SO much more enjoyable - there was even heat in the RV! It is so nice to come inside for the night, be able to turn on a light, go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without freezing to death, and have places to store all of our food, clothes, etc. The RV had a "little" trouble with the turbo, so we went 25mph on almost all of the hills. We made a few people pretty angry on the way there as they honked and zoomed by us when we had a chance to get in a passing lane. On the way home, we just kept pulling over to the side to let everyone pass us. It made for an interesting adventure :) We are so grateful that we were able to spend the weekend with our wonderful friends and are thankful for such a relaxing getaway.