A weekend at the lake

This weekend, Nana and Pappy Tom invited us up to their camp on Lake Raystown. The dreary weather made for a long day, but we got lots of activities in:
	Fishing (Fish: 2, Kids:0),
	Feeding the Carp,
	A Boat Ride,
	and Hanging Out at the Cabin. (Gavin was very proud of his life jacket)

 

Look, Ma -- No training wheels!

	Daddy had tried to get rid of Malin's training wheels several times during the summer, but Malin just wasn't ready. With all the riding she did this weekend, Daddy figured it was time to try again. After lots of practice in the grass last night and tonight, she's finally got the hang of it. She still has a little trouble turning (too timid to lean enough), and although she hasn't actually fallen either of the two nights, she says she's too scared to ride on the driveway because, "it would hurt if I tipped".
	Gavin played on the swingset while Malin was practicing her riding.

 

Too cute not to post!

The kids were playing with their Mr. Potato Head this evening, and Malin was very proud of her creation, so she asked Daddy if he would take a picture of her with it.
Here's the picture:
Not to be left out, Gavin wanted to make a Mr. Potato Head creation too. Malin wouldn't share the Mr. Potato Head, so Gavin got his hands on what accessories he could, and improvised!

 

Yet another busy weekend!

This weekend seemed like it started on Wednesday, when Uncle Brian stopped by the house for the evening. He was up visiting from Georgia for the weekend. The kids tumbled with him for a good hour, and left him completely tuckered out.
	Thursday, Mommy and the kids went swimming at Nana's, and had another good visit with Uncle Brian (and again, tired him out!).
Daddy was off on Friday, and he had the morning to knock some things off his 'honey-do' list before Mommy decided that we were going to go camping for the weekend. We went to a campground just a few miles from home called Buttonwood, where Pappy was doing a civil war battle reenactment. After getting the campsite set up, we all headed up to the high school to watch the big alumni soccer game that Uncle Brian was playing in. They had a good turnout both in fans and players. I think there were over 30 alumns that played. All the alumns that Daddy talked to (including Uncle Brian) said that they were pretty stiff and sore after the game.
After the game we headed to the campsite where we didn't really get much sleep. Saturday was a long day, but the kids had fun riding their bikes, swimming, and playing at the campsite's playground.
The kids (and thus Mommy and Daddy) slept much better Saturday night, despite the thunderstorm that blew through. Most of the morning Sunday was spent breaking camp before watching the battle in the early afternoon. Mommy and Daddy relaxed and watched the NASCAR race with Uncle Brian while the kids napped in to early evening.
Finally, to finish our weekend off we headed to Aunt Beppers and Uncle Nick's house for a short visit, where the kids had fun tumbling in the yard.

 

It's all about the...slippers?

Today Mommy had to make a quick trip to the grocery store. She told Gavin to get some shoes so that he could go along. So he put on...Malin's princess slippers?
And here are a few pictures from the past month or so. Running through the hose during the recent heat wave; Gavin and Malin color each other like tigers (look close!); and playing in the creek at Guss' Park.

 

Potpourri

Gavin has a pretty wild follow-through on his croquet swing, and somehow managed to smack himself in the face over his shoulder from behind (picture a golf swing with a croquet mallet) while playing at Mam-maw's house on Tuesday. It was a little swollen, but he wouldn't let anyone look at it closely until it had a band-aid on it. Of course, he had to apply it himself. This is how it turned out (The real 'boo-boo' was on his other eye, and up near his eyebrow). He said it felt much better after that, but I don't know how well he could see!
	It was getting late when we got home from Mam-maw's Tuesday, and we were treated to a one-day-from-full moon just peeking over the mountain and the neighbors farm just as we pulled in to the driveway. We sat and enjoyed it for a mintue or two, but it rose much more quickly than we expected, so by the time we got the camera out, it was up over the mountain quite a bit. Still, very pretty.
This next picture has a back story. When watching TV, Malin will flip right past Disney and the cartoons and stop on Food Network. She knows all the shows and celebrity chefs by name. On Friday, we were having a little get together for Mam-maw's birthday, for which Mommy was making a salad. Malin asked if she could help. Mommy already had everything cut, so Malin just had to put it all together. This, she did by herself, with no help from Mommy (except for the onion, see below)...
	After filling the bottom of the bowl with lettuce, she put the cucumbers all around the edge, and the tomato right in the middle. She wanted to put onions around with the cucumbers, but since not everyone in our family likes onions, they ended up in the middle with the tomato (easier to pick out). Then, Malin asked for the salt and pepper. When Mommy said that she didn't usually put salt and pepper on her salads, Malin replied, "Just a crank of each, Mommy -- for added flavor." (!!!). She was so proud of if. Maybe she's a chef in the making? Regardless, now Mommy and Daddy know that she's paying a lot more attention to those shows than we used to think she was!
After enjoying Malin's salad, along with burgers, hot dogs, baked beans, and chips, we had cake and ice cream. Here's Mam-maw blowing out her birthday cake candles, with some help from Malin and Gavin of course.

 

Children of the Corn?

	Malin has been asking Grandma Aughey for weeks if the corn is ready to pick. Last weekend when we were there, she thought still a few more weeks. But Friday night she called and said we'd better get it picked before the dry weather ruined it. So Saturday morning, we headed on over to the farm, red wagon in tow. After spending a few minutes playing in the barnyard with the barn cats (pictures go clockwise from the upper left), we marched in the cornfield and the kids had lots of fun picking about 3 dozen ears of corn. Then, after making a delivery of 6 ears to Mee-maw and 13 ears to Mam-Maw and Pappy, we took the rest home where the kids helped Daddy husk about 15 ears. The kids didn't get to help cook it, but they sure helped to eat it! Finall tally: Daddy: 6 ears, Mommy: 3 ears, Malin: 3 ears, Gavin: 2 ears. Also, I don't know if it's obvious in this picture, but Gavin takes such big bites that he gets way down in to the cob. We have to tell him to 'eat it like a mouse'!

 

Poke yo' nose

Another busy week as usual. Wednesday and Thursday night we had the Holderman girls overnight while Christie was away for a school conference. Those two nights were hectic, but bearable. Then Friday as soon as Daddy got home from work, Mommy left for a two night scrap with Christie and some friends to the scraphouse. Daddy made it through the weekend with only one incedent -- Gavin squeezed an entire tube of Desitin onto himself, and then hopped in the tub and tried to clean it off, which made an even bigger mess. Unfortunately, no pictures. I do, however, have some pictures from my trip to the Pocono NASCAR race to share:
	On Friday we bought pit passes and watched qualifying from the front of pit road. Got to 'meet' a dozen or more drivers, and got some good pictures. Here is my man, Jeff Gordon just before he hit the track for his qualifying laps.
We awoke Saturday morning to quite the rain storm. We had one of the lowest campsites in the infield, so pretty much the entire infield drained through our site. Here is Matt wading in the shin-deep run-off.
	Here are a few pictures of our humble camp site. Note that we had the only 'full hook up' site in the infield. I built this gag for Matt out of spare parts, and it ended up being quite the conversation piece. We even had a fellow offer us money to fill up and plug in for a couple of hours!