I Spy?

I'm usually the one who seeks the easiest route to dinner when it's my turn to make it, whether it's leftovers, pasta and sauce or quesadillas.  Tonight, Jim pulled a "julie" and suggested an easy dinner:   a trip to Silvertip Grill.  We had a groupon that was burning a hole in our pocket needed to be printed out, so off we went (minus Samuel, who is having his belated birthday/movie/sleepover party at Jim's parents' rental cabin tonight).

As we waited for our meals*, the little girls, Jim and I played I Spy.

You surely know the game.  "I spy with my little eye something that is..." and name a color.  Now, to play the game fairly (and truthfully), you really should 'find' something and keep that thing in mind when you state the color and answer the 'is it...' questions. 

Bethany seemed to do that.   Abigail, not so much.  Her replies to the 'is it...' questions seemed a little fishy at times.  Like she decided to change her answer to favor one 'player' over another.  That one player was usually me.

Finally, during one of her turns I called her on her tendency to shift her answers.  I asked her to pick one thing and one thing only, to which she replied "I don't think in my head!"

Ah, well, that explains it!



*which was, if you're curious: french toast for the older girls, grilled cheese for Bethany, chicken tenders for Abigail, burger/salad for me, taco salad thing for Jim

First Camping Trip with Short Louds

This was going to be it!  The summer we finally took the little girls on their first camping trip.  (Jim calls them The Short Louds occasionally...the name fits.)

Only we weren't making it happen.  We had 'post school year de-stressing' and lots of baseball games (as you know, if you read this blog) and my Tuesday night classes thrown in there and then Forest Fair and my parents' final days of visiting and then ... oh wait!  We didn't really have anything else for a couple of weeks besides getting together with some dear friends who were up visiting parents.

When our friends suggested going camping together, I thought it would be a great combination of camping and hanging out.  Schedules were cleared, plans were made and the countdown began.  The little girls were pretty excited about the whole thing and kept asking how many sleeps till we went camping.

I put the tent up the day before we went, to check for any gaping holes or nasty odors.  It had been at least six years since we've been camping, after all, and I had to make sure it hadn't deteriorated to the point that we'd be eaten alive by mosquitoes or dripped on if it rained.

Thankfully, the tent was intact.  Packed away with several dead bugs, but intact.  And that was a very good thing.  Because it started to rain when we were about 20 minutes away from our campsite. And it rained while we debated about setting up the tent now or when the rain might slack off.  And it rained while we caught up with our friends.

Thankfully, it stopped raining after a little while and we were able to set up the tent, explore the Trail River Campground a bit and enjoy some conversation around the campfire.  The rain abated just about the time that Susannah broke down and donned a stylish black trash bag over her (my) ineffective rain coat.  And yes, this little coincidence meant that we requested that she keep said trash bag on, even though it was not raining.  :)

Oh yes, she rocked the trash bag raincoat!

The men were all about finding more wood to keep the fire going, and Jim and our friend David came back with a huge log to contribute to the firewood stash.  Problem was they had to cut it down a little.  With a hand saw.  And maybe a hatchet (not sure if it was used or not).  Dave mostly worked on sawing while Jim mostly worked on balancing.  Or something like that:

 
What Jim was really doing was keeping one end of the log 'secured' while Dave tried breaking off the other end, after sawing through it most of the way.  It didn't really work, other than entertaining those of us watching.  (I still think those two could be in the lumberjack show at the AK State Fair.)  Eventually, Jim just started throwing the log down onto the other log and it did break off.  More firewood for us!

We enjoyed a traditional campfire meal of hot dogs and s'mores and talked some more.

Staying close to the fire for food and for warmth.

Sometime after dinner:  thrilled faces!

I had to add this one.  Dave's face is rather...interesting.

She really was enjoying the s'more!

How bizarre...the rest of the post has disappeared.  I had more photos, more about little boats the kids made, etc.  Guess I'll have to rewrite this one when I get a chance.  Sorry!