Camping Family Adventure

On May 5th through the 7th, Gary and I went camping with my brother Ben, my sister Sarah, and her two children Jeilyn (5) and Kinton (2). We went to Riverside State Park, which is right on the outskirts of Spokane. It was a great weekend, and we accomplished everything we set out to do, with lots of time to spare! The best part was that even though the weather forecast said there would be intermittent showers throughout the days we were there, It actually only rained on our last night. The rest of the time we enjoyed beautiful (if a little chilly) weather!

On our first night we set up camp and then made dinner, which consisted of roasted hotdogs on buns. We had a good time showing the kids how to roast a good hotdog over the fire. For dessert we continued the roasting theme and made s'mores! Jeilyn had a lot of fun with them, but Kinton seems to prefer his marshmallows cold with graham crackers and chocolate on the side. Perhaps when he's older he'll understand the awesomeness of a good hot s'more.

After dinner we played around a little bit, then retired to the tent where we sang camp songs and Gary entertained us with "scary" stories (they weren't that scary). Afterward we all laid down and listened to Sarah read a chapter of the Book of Mormon to her kids as they fell asleep.

Cooking and eating. Pleas excuse Ben's weird face!

The next morning, I woke everyone up early (it's hard to sleep on the ground when one is 29 weeks pregnant) and we got ready to make Breakfast Burritos! Gary made the filling in his dutch oven and then warmed up the tortillas on the lid. It was so good!

Uncle Gary carried Kinton the whole time!

After cleaning up we decided to go hiking.  There were some really nice trails, which were easy enough for Jeilyn and me to go on.

Jeilyn and Ben overlooking the Spokane River rapids.

Along one of the trails, we heard a baby hawk calling for it's parents. You could just barely see him in his nest at the top of the tree.

While on the trails, we found a walking stick for Jeilyn, and later one for Kinton as well, even though he wasn't walking. When we got back to camp, Gary whittled the bark off and wrapped the tops with leather cord so the kids could take them home.

 After our return from hiking and a nice lunch of sandwiches, Ben and Gary decided to do some biking on the other side of the river. While they were gone, the children, Sarah, and I made peanut butter bird feeders. Kinton was more interested in eating the peanut butter, and was constantly getting seeds in his mouth because he couldn't wait for Mom to put some on a clean plate for him. In a bid for some attention for herself, Jeilyn tried it too.

The peanut butter was cold and sticky.

Jeilyn and Kinton next to Jeilyn's birdfeeder. This picture was taken just before she pushed Kinton out of the picture. Yay for sisterly love.

It was a pretty steep hill.

 When the boys got back, we had a lot of time to kill before it was time for bed, so Gary decided to teach Kinton and Jeilyn how to climb steep hills. Uncle Ben ended up going too because Gary climbed up first and only then realized that might not be a good idea, lest one of the little ones should fall backwards. What a good uncle!


 After eating our foil dinners, it started to rain, so we packed everything into Sarah's van and turned in for the night. It rained really hard the whole night, so in the morning we decided to skip breakfast at the campsite and made our weary way home. All in all, it was a great weekend, and hopefully we can go camping together again sometime!

Upon our return to Pullman, Gary put the birdseed out on our porch and we got a visitor! He came back the next day for more too!

Projects and Adventures

Dinner!

Desert!

Last night we went out with our very good friends Bridget and Adam Sweeney. We ate BLTs, potato salad, donuts and cookies in Todd Hall, and then wandered around the CUB for a while looking to take some fun and silly pictures! It was lots of fun for Bridget and I at least, and the boys were good sports. 

Bridget hang on!

Probably one of the best pictures of the evening because we had no idea what the others were doing.

About a week ago, we got Gary's sewing machine fixed, which led him to want to do a lot of projects involving sewing. One such project again revolves around the baby. He wanted to make a toy for her to play with, and with all the scraps lying around the house, he decided that cloth blocks would be pretty much awesome. And so far they are.

The first two blocks Gary made all by himself out of bits of shirts he didn't want anymore.

This is my favorite block so far. Her name is going to be Peri, after his grandfather (but not spelt the same way, obviously) So Gary made a block with her name on it. I cut out the letters and sewed them on, and did a rather meh job. But considering it was the first time I did something like that, I think it turned out okay.






Gary and I are pretty excited for this week, because we're attending our first birthing class on Wednesday!  It pretty much means we're getting close to done with this whole pregnancy thing (I don't hate it, but it certainly isn't my favorite state to be in). Just three short months to go!

On Thursday, we're traveling to Spokane to have a short camping trip with my brother, my sister, and her two children. We have a lot planned, and hopefully we'll have a really fun time and the weather will stay nice and sunny! Unfortunately, the weather forecast says otherwise. Still, we're holding out for a good weekend!

After we pack up on Saturday morning, Gary and I are taking my mom out to the movies for Mother's Day, and she's pretty excited about it. We're going to see Thor, which, she has told me but doesn't seem to remember anymore, was her favorite superhero growing up. It looks like it might turn out to be a good movie, but in any case my mom's not picky so she'll probably have a good time no matter what.

First Post for the new Family Blog

I've been told by all my friends that I should have a blog, because apparently it's the thing to do. I didn't know what to blog about, but since I'm married now and have a girl on the way, I suppose my life might get a little more interesting. One can hope anyway. I have also been informed that it's a good way to keep the people who care updated on what's going on in life. I've been following a couple of my friends' blogs, and so far it's been enjoyable, so I'll go ahead and say they're right. So I've decided to post pictures and whatnot of the things we do with friends and family and around the home. I'm also looking forward to figuring out just exactly how to customize a blog space and make it really sweet.

Gary (my husband) and I have had quite a few things going on lately, so hopefully anyone who reads this will enjoy seeing what we're getting up to!

So let's get started!

Gary and I are expecting a baby girl at the end of July, so we're doing a few projects to get ready for her. The first one we did was a changing table for her. At goodwill, we found this kitchen cabinet/bar thing that was obviously attached to someone's wall at one point. We had already taken off the cabinet doors and hardware before I thought to take pictures for before/after purposes. 

 The inside was a pretty color at least.

But the top was orange linoleum. Ewwww. It was cute though, because a nice Asian lady at goodwill said it was a pretty color. I agreed with her to be polite.

What we really liked were these rounded shelves on the end. Gives the whole thing some character.

After a lot of cleaning, sanding, painting and other shenanigans, we got a pretty cool-looking (in my opinion) changing table:

 Currently it holds our DVDs and other assorted junk, but that won't be the case forever.

We took off all that nasty linoleum and replaced it with foam and fabric for a nice cushy place to change the baby. We're not totally done with it yet, because we wanted to stencil on some other decorations, but we'll be moving to a new place soon, so we decided to hold off on that until we are resettled.

That's about all for now. We have a really packed week ahead of us though, so expect some new adventures soon!