Lollipop Race

Tonight, Josiah swam in his first swim meet. He swam in the lollipop race. Here he is waiting to go.

There he goes with his backpack.  Each lollipop swimmer has a big kid swim with them.

Josiah sometimes swims laps with his backpack with the eight and under swimmers.

After the lollipop race, he got a Twizzler instead of a lollipop.

Here is Lydia getting ready to swim backstroke.  I think she got second.  She swam in freestyle and backstroke.

Wesley only swam freestyle. He got first place in backstroke on Saturday so he couldn't swim that stroke in a B meet tonight.  His coach said said he could try breast stroke or butter fly but that he would be disqualified for not being able to do the stroke correctly. So, we were able to leave the tri-meet a little earlier.

I am loving the swim team experience.  I don't think Chris likes it half as much as I do.  Thankfully, the kids like it.  But, maybe not as much as I do.

Biking at Burke Lake

On Monday, I took the kids to Burke Lake. This was Lydia's first time riding her bike around the lake. Wesley has been biking around the lake for a while now.  Lydia did great (except for that time she was looking at some boaters and hit a tree).

The kids insisted on stopping and talking with this very nice fisherman.  He was very patient with all their questions.

Wesley and Lydia had to stop a few times and wait on me.

I bribed Josiah to ride in the stroller by promising him a train ride.

We also rode the carousel.

The kids loved the carousel, of course.

After this, they played on the playground.

That afternoon, the kids had swim team practice.  I was so tired at dinner, but the kids still had plenty of energy.

Here is an unrelated item: I left my workout equipment out one day and Wesley made a workout man with it.

Church Camp

Last week Chris took Wesley to church camp for the second year in a row.

Wesley quickly found a crayfish.  The kid is obsessed with animals.

Here is a picture of Lake Chilly Water and the slide the boys did. That's Wesley and Jacob walking.

Wesley and Jacob in the water.

Wesley found a little turtle outside their cabin.

He also found a little lizard that he carried around for two hours until Chris convinced him to let the little guy go.

They did different activities this year than what they did last year.  Here Wesley is getting suited up for the big swing.

Ready to go at the top.

Here is the video of the slide.  I think I might have chickened out like some of the other boys did.

They have to bring over the stairs to get the boys down.

The boys also did cool craft projects.  Wesley painted a ring catcher.

They hiked to The Little Water Fall.

The first time Chris went to Camp McCall, he was seven years old.  He slipped on the rocks and busted his chin and had to get stitches.  Thankfully, everyone was safe on this trip.

Despite the cold, look how happy Wesley is.  When I look at all the photos from Camp McCall, what strikes me is that Wesley looks so incredibly happy in all of them.

Wesley made a ping pong ball catapult.

The boys did canoe sinking.

We don't have any pictures or videos of the canoe sinking because Chris and Stephen took the opportunity to do The Drainpipe.  The camp doesn't allow the little kids to do it because the pipe shoots you out at 30 mph. Here is a video of Stephen going down the Drainpipe.
Chris and Wesley went canoeing.

Chris and Wesley before chapel one night.

Wesley with one of the counselors for their cabin.

The group from the church Chris grew up in.  Stephen took this picture.

I think Lydia was more than a little jealous when she saw all the fun activities on the camp video.

Camping with Cicadas

On Saturday, Chris and Wesley went camping with Wesley's cub scout pack.  The boys in his den tried to "mine" this dirt with sticks.

I am sure Wesley really enjoyed this.  He got extremely dirty.

Wesley, his  leader, and three of the other four boys in his den.

One thing that totally makes me laugh is the fact that the pack had dinner catered by Famous Dave's BBQ.  I keep teasing Chris that this would only happen in Northern Virginia.  The dens did cook their own breakfasts on Sunday morning.

The highlight of the camp out for Wesley was the cicadas.  We aren't supposed to see this brood of cicadas near our house.  We last saw a large brood of cicadas in 2004 inside the beltway.

They are rather cool looking.

Wesley spent a lot of time collecting cicadas.

The other boys were also interested in them.

Wesley took two cicadas to school with him today.  Thankfully, the teachers and kids enjoyed seeing them.

A Cold Camping Trip

This weekend we went to Cunningham Falls State Park for our annual camping trip there. We have been camping there every year since 2008.  After we set up our tent, we hiked up to the water fall.

This was Lydia's chosen hiking gear - a jump rope tied around her like a safety patrol sash and a pink sequin purse tied to that.  We were already hiking before I realized she had the purse with her.

After the hike, we walked down to the lake.  There were five or six kids playing in the water.  All of the adults with them had on jackets.  It was about 58 degrees.

The kids played on the playground and Josiah practiced his climbing skills.

We had delicious chicken fajita's for dinner.  While Chris grilled the chicken, I sauteed the peppers and onions on the camp stove and did jumping jacks in between stirring the veggies.  It was cold and windy while we were eating.

We huddled around the camp fire and roasted marshmallows 

The kids love roasting (and eating) marshmallows.

I woke up very cold during the middle of night, but I got warmer when I put the sleeping bag over my head. When Wesley woke up complaining of being cold, I told him to put the sleeping bag over his head (and said a quick prayer that he wouldn't suffocate himself).  Josiah stayed warm in his sleeping bag with a down comforter on top and Lydia had a quilt on top of her sleeping bag.

Once we were all up and out of the tent, Josiah cuddled in the down blanket by the camp fire.  We ate breakfast (bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches) around the camp fire.

We decided to try a longer hike in the nearby national park.  I knew we needed some bribes to entice Lydia.  She did a lot of complaining on the 1.5 mile hike the day before.  I bought two lollipops for each kiddo.

 The kids did great and Wesley and Lydia didn't complain at all.  Josiah complained very little.

Here is a family picture of us at Wolf Rock.

Under the rock on the left in the above picture was a snake.  I am proud of myself for knowing it was a rattle snake even before we saw and heard it's rattler.

A few years ago, during another camping trip, we saw two copperheads while hiking.

A beautiful view at the Thurmont Vista.

After hiking over three miles, Josiah needed a ride and then quickly fell asleep.  We were only about 1/3 of a mile from the van when he fell asleep.

So, how did we get the kids to hike 3 1/2 miles and then sit quietly in the sun for a few minutes.

Ice Cream!  We told them they could get ice cream if they hiked and didn't complain.

We hiked very slowly, at a two year old's pace, but we enjoyed being out in the beautiful woods together as a family.  It felt like a major victory/accomplishment/turning point to me.  Mainly because it gave me hope that there will be more family hikes in the future.

We wimped out on the camping though.  Rather than face another dinner in the cold and wind and another cold night in the tent, we packed up and headed home at 4:00. The kids were all begging to stay another night.