Pack, Unpack, Repeat!

Last week we were settling back in after being at Shadow Lake, but we were also getting ready for our annual tent camping weekend.  We all decided we didn't enjoy having the two trips so close together, but we had a fun weekend of camping nonetheless.  We returned to Lake Dunmore this year, because we enjoyed the beautiful beach and lake area here when we visited two years ago.  The weather was mostly good, but we had to ride out a thunderstorm on Saturday afternoon. Luckily we had gotten a weather alert, so we packed up our campsite pretty well before the storm hit, and everything stayed dry!  I'll call that a camping win, especially for novice campers like ourselves!  Other highlights of the camping trip included a hike to the Falls of Lana, a beautiful lookout, and some brook trout fishing success for Matt.  We swam, floated, paddle-boarded, pedal-boated, and played a great new lawn game called Koob.  All in all, a great weekend with friends!

Note the pouring rain!  Kids were still swimming!

World's largest ice cream sandwiches

Watercolor painting in the Nature Center - this was a perfect activity during the rain

Painting by Evie!

The ladies were proud winners of Koob!

Packed to the gills!

Noah had a blast at Mountain Biking Camp last week, especially with his cousin Elliot as one of his instructors!  They biked to the top of Saxon Hill (Mojo), covered a ton of miles on other trails, and then got covered in mud on their final day of camp at Catamount.  

Mud face

Noah with his instructors

Muddy Friday

Holy mud!

Snakes on the trail! Yikes!

Meanwhile, Evie has been busy helping out as an assistant at cooking camp and baking camp!  She loves kids and cooking, so this is a perfect mix of her talents.  She has mostly enjoyed it, although her eyes have been opened to behaviors and challenges that teachers face!

We also had a lovely evening as a family seeing Jason Mraz in concert, on what would have been Nana Mil's 97th birthday last week.  The music was filled with good vibes, and we were even graced with a rainbow!

On to a new week and a new camp...this time, baseball camp for Noah!

Noah and his buddies walking into Centennial Field for baseball camp

My hydrangea is blooming for the first time in many, many years! Yayyyy!