Cran Hill

In July, we headed to Cran Hill, camping with a group from our church.

The kiddos had never been camping and scott and I hadn’t been in forever, so it was definitely gonna be an adventure!

This was actually our stuff as we were unpacking after our trip, but it gives you an idea of the madness!  We were piled in pretty good in the van!!

The kids all loved the tent! it worked out really good because there are three rooms – we took the middle and each of the kids had their own.  we brought three fans too, so we could each cool down – it was in the upper 80s/90s the whole weekend! :) 

cousins reading some ranger rick in the tent…

and of course they had to hang out in the campers too! 

There was a great little playground right across the way from us and the lake was just a quick walk too!  can you tell syd liked to swing?  she would just lean back and scream..it was cute!

spectators 

getttin a ride from uncle paul to the barn store

all of the kiddos! 

we kept pretty busy while we were there – jen, paul, kenz, d, owen and I went tubing on saturday morning – owen was not a fan and cried basically the entire way – but we tried to make the most of it! 

the bigger kids did some archery, and we ate plenty of ice cream from the barn store!  we also all did tie dye! 

the finished products

hanging out on the beach  

cuddling with papa   

feeding the animals! they were quite a hit for the kiddos

another thing owen tried out (which we were pretty surprised he went through with) was the giant slip n slide…he waited in line and went right down and couldn’t wait to get back in line and try it again!

mid-air shot!  

We also went on horse drawn wagon ride

the kids thought it was great

most of the gang! 

matt and paul throwing the kiddos around in the water owen ‘diving’ into the water

and floating around…

we stayed super busy all weekend and wish we would have been able to stay for more than just the weekend!  even though we were with a large group from church, we didn’t really get to hang out with everyone – the kiddos kept us very busy but we still had an awesome time and kole camping trip #1 was a success.

this is on the way home, I’ll say the kiddos were pretty tired out!!!

Family Pics

Back at the beginning of the summer – or maybe it was even back in May (?!) we had our family pics done by Kellie Janicki; they turned out so cute! 

it was SO.incredibly.HOT that day but we got through it! :)

love this pic of all four of us..

these two are so cute – she does anything he does

they love to hold hands – he has always reached over to hold her hand at random times.

sweet sydney charlotte

the fam

we attempted to get a pic of the two of them with us in the background…they didn’t turn out all perfect and posed…but guess what? these are my kiddos and these pics show their personalities so well! owen doing what he was told and syd trying to get away…

then owen saw a ‘bom-ba-deer’ (actually sea-doo – we’ve always made fun of them by calling them bombadeers – because so many people mispronounce  bombardier) drive by and in this pic he is saying - ‘look syd; a bombadeer!’

syd decided to check out. owen was still trying to be good and pose!

little man checking out the water…

eating suckers and checking out the boats on the lake 

our piggies

Fun and the Fourth

Over the 4th of July holiday, the kiddos and I headed to the cottage.  The 4th was on a Wed this year, so I took Th and Fri off of work.  Scott stayed home because he had to teach on Thu, so the kids and I headed up Wednesday morning.  Jen, Kenz, and Dylan also headed up that morning and Grandma and Grappy were up there waiting for us.

First thing Owen did when we got up there was put on his life jacket!! Fishing was his top priority!

cousins!

Wed night we got pizza and headed out on the pontoon for a dinner cruise.  Worked out perfect, considering the power was out back in the  cottage!   

there was a huge storm and one of the chairs got blown into the water – so the main attraction one afternoon was watching grappy rescue it from the water! 

it was SO hot that week!!! over 100 degrees; and the power didn’t come on until later in the afternoon on Thursday! but we made the most of it and stayed cool in the water!

state park…

slip and slide!!

the dunes…

poor little girl…her little body doesn’t work well with a two piece, look at her little buns :)

one morning, owie was just so cozy wrapped up in this blanket! 

i think the mornings are always one of my favorite times at the cottage….not that i like getting up early, but the kids are so cuddly and and it just feels good to know the day is wide open in front of you and its fun to just not have any plans, but to just relax! 

all of the cousins cuddled up

syd hitting the lake with her pole

one day, just to get out of the heat, we went to the children’s museum.  so cute and the kids loved it!

Their favorite part, by far was the ‘grocery’ section. 

Papa came up for the weekend to join us and the boys caught lots of fish!

we had to go see the badger!

Check out the ‘stache’ on the statue!

On sunday, we went hiking at the state park!  the kiddos thought it was great fun to take the trail maps and pretend they were kites and they ran with them screaming down the trail. 

checking out some fish

what a fun mini-vacation.  it was a hot one, but we got to make lots of memories!