Camping at Newton Hills

We had our first successful camping trip of the summer! We headed to Newton Hills for the weekend, and everyone had a really good time.

Jim and Barb bought a new camper a couple of months ago, so John and I pretty much inherited their old camper, which is pretty sweet. It's a 1989 camper, and it's nothing special, but it's free and it's in good shape, and John and I love it. So we stayed in out camper, and Jim and Barb stayed in theirs, and we just had a nice weekend.

We got to the campsite and set up at around 5:00pm on Friday night. Things got off to a pretty interesting start when Jim split his head open on a sharp edge of the camper, and he had to go to the ER and get some staples put in. He was ok, and after his ER visit he came back and stayed the rest of the weekend, but it made things interesting for a little while.

After some supper, and a campfire with some smores, John took Elliott home for the night, and Emma and I cleaned up and spent the night in the camper. We brought Elliott home each night because he had a terrible cold and we didn't want everyone to be awake all night listening to it, so it was better for everyone that he slept in his own bed. Emma on the other hand, LOVED the camping experience, especially the camper and sleeping in it. She was so excited to have her own bunk bed, and sleep in the camper, and use the flashlight to get around in the dark. She was just eating up the camping experience, it was pretty cute.

Saturday was a good day. We spent time going on bike rides, playing on playgrounds, doing crafts, watching Trolls outside, and just relaxing. It was a little exhausting trying to keep Elliott out of things he shouldn't be in, but otherwise it was a really good day. It started to rain on and off in the afternoon, but otherwise the weather was beautiful all weekend. In the evening, I took Elliott home for the night, and Emma and John spent the night in the camper. Elliott and I had a good night at home, and then headed back out to the campsite the next morning.

On Sunday, we had a pancake brunch, spent a little more time biking and playing, and then we packed up and headed home. We were all pretty pooped, and the kids had some good naps while we got unpacked and settled back at home. We had a pretty quiet Sunday evening, and tried to get the kids to bed early for Monday morning.

This week has been busy. I am beat. We had softball the last two nights, which got pretty late, tonight is church and then a meeting, and then tomorrow there is a block party at a church close to us. It's just like every night this week has something going on, so between that, and work, and the kids, I am just plain tired. Hopefully, I can catch up on some sleep this weekend!!

Emma loving the camping 

Games with Grandma 

Bike Rides with Daddy 

Elliott was obsessed with the campfire 

Painting 

Playground Fun 

Practicing casting skills

Bike Rides 

Siblings 

Playing in the rain 

Emma's 5th Birthday!!

Emma turned 5 years old today, and it's pretty close to the time she was actually born 5 years ago. She came into the world at 10:54 pm 5 years ago. That is just crazy to me!! I feel like there is no way it was that long ago.

I absolutely love the age Emma is right now. She is just so fun to be around, and it's pretty easy to take her just about anywhere, and she finds a way to make it fun.

Emma loves all things outside. She is really into swimming right now. She loves just swimming in the backyard or going to city pool. She really doesn't care as long as there is water involved. She also really enjoys coming to watch John and I play softball. She like begs to come along, and she loves playing with the other kids and then running the bases when the games are over.

She is still really enjoying daycare and all of her friends there, but she is super excited for school and can't wait for it to start. Although, she tells me she will miss her daycare friends. So sweet.

Emma and I enjoy having "girl dates" where we go out and do fun things by ourselves and leave the boys at home. We sometimes go to a movie, or shopping, or a swimming adventure, or a park date. It's nice to have some one on one time sometimes, and Emma eats it up.

Overall, Emma is a pretty well behaved little girl. She tries really hard to listen to us and follow the rules, but she does have her meltdowns. Her and Elliott fight over toys quite often, and sometimes when we say no to something, she immediately starts fake crying and carrying on. It's a work in progress.

She is at an age where she hears everything and asks questions constantly. We have to be very careful what we say in front of her, because she will hear it, and repeat it. She does make us laugh constantly, and says the funniest things. She likes to be goofy and silly, and it's pretty cute.

Today, we celebrated Emma's birthday by going to the Omaha Zoo (Emma kept calling it the Hawaii Zoo, it was pretty cute). The kids had an absolute blast, and are so very worn out.

Jim and Barb met up with us at our house and we left at about 7:30 am. We made pretty good time, and only stopped once, and we got to the zoo at around 10:30. We spent the next 7 hours walking around the zoo looking at all kinds of animals.

The zoo also has a Splash Pad now, and both kids had such a good time playing in there. Also, it was hot. Like, really hot, so the splash pool felt really, really good. It was 98 degrees, and sunny, and humid. We were pretty hot and sweaty most of the day, but that didn't stop us from having a ton of fun.

We actually hit up most of the zoo, we missed the lion exhibit and the petting zoo, but pretty much did everything else. We also missed the Skyfari ride, it was closed before we could go on it. Emma was pretty sad about it, but we decided we will just have to go back sometime and ride it then.

The kids were really well behaved and did a great job at the zoo. We rented a double stroller, and both kids enjoyed switching back and forth from walking and riding. Elliott was so tired by the afternoon, but he made it until around 4:30pm, when he finally gave up and passed out in the stroller.

We finally made it home at about 9:00pm, and put two really tired kids straight to bed. We are all pretty wiped. I had a great day at the zoo, and really enjoyed the day, but now I am ready for some sleep! We have a whole weekend of camping ahead of us yet!!

Checking out the elephants 

The Splash Park 

Sibling Love 

At the Aquarium 

One tired kiddo 

Emma's 5th Birthday Party!

Another week has passed, and we have stayed just as busy as ever. We have been constantly on the go, and our poor kids don't get to bed before 9pm very often, but we are all having a great summer so far!

This past week kept us pretty busy, with softball a couple nights, and then a weekend full of activities. Emma is loving the softball season. I usually take her with me to games on Tuesday nights, and she loves riding her bike around, playing with the other kids, and watching a little softball. It's pretty cute. Elliott is a little too much of a handful yet, so usually him and John stay home and have a boys evening.

On Friday evening, we took the kids to a Canaries' Game. They were having a family night, and they showed "The Sandlot" on the big screen before the game, and also had $1 hotdogs and beers. They also had some bouncy houses, which our kids had a blast in. For most of the actual game, the kids were either jumping in a bounce house, or eating ice cream, but we did actually watch a couple innings, and they handled it really well. We also spent some time in the open green area over by left field, and the kids really liked that. They could run around and have a little more freedom.

It was a Friday night game, so there were fireworks after the game. We had to stay until the end for those, and the kids loved them. Elliott got a little scared at first, but then he couldn't stop talking about them. He called them "color booms". It was adorable and they had so much fun. It was after 10pm when we got home, and we had two very tired kiddos to get to bed.

Saturday was Emma's birthday party, and we had such a fun day. We had her party at the Yogi Bear Resort Campground just outside of Sioux Falls. It was a pretty warm day, but that didn't stop us all from having a good time.  All of our family was there, and around 10 other kids for Emma to play with.

We started off jumping on the big pillow, and then playing on the inflatables. Yogi bear came and visited the party at around 2pm, and handed out a gift for Emma and some party bags for the other kids. We then ate cake and ice cream. Then we headed for the swimming pool. We spent a good hour and a half in the pool, and all the kids had such a good time.  I brought some pool toys and inflatables, and they were a huge hit. Emma loved floating around in her inflatable, pretty much the entire time and Elliott enjoyed climbing in and out of the pool and even jumping in a little. It was a little tricky watching both kids by myself, but we survived any major disasters, and had to drag them out of the pool because they were enjoying it so much.

After swimming, Emma opened her gifts. She had a Trolls theme for her gifts, and she got a lot of cute things. After gifts, it was pretty much time to head home. Both kids fell asleep before we even left the park, they were so shot. They slept for a good hour or so at home, and then Mom, Dad, Ryan, Rachel, Carlos, Elena, John, Emma, Elliott and I headed for Sickies Garage for supper. It was good, but we didn't get home until close to 8pm. So, after getting the tired, crabby kids to bed, we enjoyed a campfire and some relaxing.

Sunday was also a pretty busy day. We went to church in the morning, then we ate brunch at Hy Vee with my parents and brother, before they headed home. After some very necessary naps for both kids, we headed out to Jim and Barb's to clean up the campers for camping this weekend. It was super hot and humid out, and we spent a good 2 hours scrubbing and cleaning the camper. We were sweaty and tired after we were done, but it felt really good to have that job done.

After supper, we headed back home again. Luckily, I have today off and can use it as a catch up day. I already ran to Walmart and got some groceries for camping. Right now, it's storming outside and I am enjoying some OITNB with my feet up for a while. Also, trying to clean the house some.

This week is going to be so busy, but really really fun. We are going to the Omaha Zoo on Emma's actually birthday (Thursday) and then we are camping all weekend long at Newton Hills. It should be really fun.

Now, many, many pictures of our crazy-fun weekend!!

Popsicles on the front step

Summertime 

Canaries' Game 

Dancing to the YMCA on the field 

Fireworks

Emma's Birthday Party 

Yogi Bear came to visit 

Birthday Girl!!

Opening Presents 

Birthday Party Crew-minus a couple 

The three amigos 

Emma and Elena