Our First Family Camping Trip-Roaring River State Park

A couple of weeks ago we joined the Burrow family and the Cornett family for our first ever family camping trip.  To say we were all excited is an understatement!  We headed up to Roaring River State Park on a Friday afternoon and camped until mid day Sunday.  We had beautiful camp sites that backed up to the river...with a huge field in between where we could play and explore.  The kids had so much fun practicing casting their fishing poles and looking for sticks and simply playing silly games.  There was so much laughter and fun had by all of us!  I think all of the kiddos were most excited about sleeping in tents.  We heard all kinds of comments Friday afternoon about how they were tired and needed to go to bed just so they could be inside the tents.  After talking around the campfire and roasting hundreds of marshmallows we all finally turned in and snuggled up under the covers for a very cold, and long, night. On Saturday the dad's took the big kids fishing while Emily and I headed to the playground for some little kid fun.  We all ate well, walked along the beautiful river and rested over and over again all weekend.  There is nothing better than hot chocolate and s'mores around a campfire each night before bed and then waking up to a beautiful sunrise, a new campfire and a cup of hot apple cider.  Each night as we fell asleep Rhonald and I kept talking about how we can't wait to take them camping again.  It was such a blessing to be together all weekend without any outside distractions.  To play and laugh and talk and really be together.  Just talking about it makes me want to pack up and go again!

Our First Parent/Teacher Conference

I am so very behind on this blog....ugh! 

A couple of weeks ago Rhonald and I met with Cole's teacher, Miss S, for our first parent/teacher conference.  I will say that I wasn't all that nervous of what she would say...I go in every Monday afternoon to help in her classroom and I thought if there was anything "bad" she would have already told me.  We were, however, very surprised at some of the things that she told us.  She complimented Cole on his behavior and attitude.  She talked about how he was a fast learner and was really picking up things quickly in her class.  The thing that kindof shocked us though was when she told us how good Cole is at math.  Math....not a strong subject for Rhonald or myself.  Miss S explained that Cole is already doing adding and subtracting and she is beginning to start him on some simple multiplication.  She told us that he has gotten to where he doesn't even show his work on his paper because he can simply think of the answers in his head.  Cole's response when Miss S asked him why, for example, 5 + 1 equals 6..."well, because it just is."  Nice!  We were so proud of him for everything she had to say and everything we have seen him accomplish so far.  It has only been 7 weeks and he is reading simple sentences and learning new words every day.  He is coming home with new friends and new stories every day - it is awesome!

Lemonade Anyone???

This past weekend our family, along with 3 other families, hosted a garage sale.  An epic and huge garage sale!  It was so much work!  The best part of the sale though....getting to see our big boys working together at the very first lemonade stand.  Jackson, Jonah and Cole worked pretty hard all day as well, serving lemonade and cookies to many families.  In the end they each made about $4.60.   We were all so proud of their hard work.  I have never seen 3 happier boys in all of my life!