Summery Water Time Fun

It can't be all work and no play....so we took the morning off from mowing and went to the free summer movies at Wytheville and afterwards headed to Carter's Park for a picnic and wet water fun in the creek!  We've learned not to push Ryan into joining us...so sometimes he comes and sometimes he doesn't.  He chose to stay home today, but we missed him.  I think he would have loved the movie, Mall Cop, it wasn't a favorite of everyone , but he probably would have loved it.

Brianne LOVES blueberries.  She's been known to put down a whole container--all by herself!

The Down Syndrome Association of the New River Valley gathered one evening to spend some time getting to know each other and share a bite to eat.  We met at the Frog Pond in Christiansburg....and of course IT RAINED!  Who would have thought.  The thunder and lightening kept us out of the pool for most of the night.  But the kids did get to swim for about 45 minutes toward the end of the night....Yeah!

Girls Camp---Sweet is the Work

This is Cailin.

2013 was the year that I went to Girl's Camp for the first time. I was a yearling, along with 17 other girls. The Yearlings group is always the largest one.
Sister Morgan, the woman in the pink shirt and sunglasses drove us to Camp Roland, where Girl's Camp was held. Beside Sister Morgan is Breeona, who is a second year, or a Mountaineer. Then there is Beryl. She is a third year, or an Insperator. The spell check won't give me the right spelling, sorry. Then there is me and beside me is Mikayla. We're both first years. Yearlings. Then there is Sister Fisher in the black Radford Bobcats shirt.
So Sister Morgan drove us in her gigantic green van to the spacious Camp Roland. We drove for about an hour, listening to a John Bytheway CD.
When we arrived we unpacked, helped put up tents, and complained about how hot it was. The heat, luckily, wouldn't last more than a few more days.
DAY 1: The next day was a little chaotic because none of use really knew what we were supposed to do and the leaders were overwhelmed by how many twelve-year-old girls they had to control, but that was the only day that it was so.
We had to cook our own breakfast and then clean the bathrooms. Cleaning bathrooms is not on my list of favorite things to do. However, with eighteen girls all working together, you find that it gets done quickly.
That day we played in a creek that ran along the campsite perimeter. We got very wet but we were definitely not hot anymore.
DAY 2: Now that I look back on it, the days kind of mixed into one another, but I'll try my best. We had a scripture study with all the Yearlings. I could tell who was more...spiritual, I suppose, than the others, and who had a little more learning and searching to do. Most people answered questions, though, and we all got little lamps made out of clay from Jerusalm. They were really pretty, and they were hand made. When I came home and showed it, Connor looked on the bottom and jokingly said, "I was looking for a 'Made in China' sticker."
DAY 3: We took our 2-3 mile hike this day. Everyone was kind of complaining by the end about how their feet hurt, they had run out of water, etc, etc, but I've been on hikes a lot longer than that and, to me, it wasn't even really much of a hike. It was more of a longish nature walk. But it was still really interesting and the trail was well-kept. Twice, though, two small trees had come down from the thunderstorms that had been occurring frequently. One we couldn't go around and had to go over it.
DAY 4: This day we learned about First Aid and other stuff with the Youth Leaders. It was also Skit Night. Because we were Yearlings, we didn't really know what to do and we had an enormous amount of girls. Our skit was...well, interesting. As in crazy and we hadn't rehearsed it once because we didn't have any time. It took us long enough to assign parts and come up with a semi decent skit. Some of the girls who weren't so excited about acting in front of a lot of other girls were the 'audience'. Needless to say, we had too many girls to do a skit on such short notice efficiently. This was also the day of the service project. We went to a retirement home. Or a nursing home. Anyway, I've never been very comfortable around elderly people that I don't know and it was no different here. We sang to them camp songs and they liked it a lot. I could tell that it really made their day.
DAY 5: This was the last real, full day of Camp. One thing I forgot to mention was that every day me, Mikayla, and several other girls swam in the creek. We were supposed to have use of the pool, but the pool's pump or filter or something broke. There wasn't even any water in it.
Testimony Meeting was that night. It was really nice. Some of the more joke-around girls bore some really amazing testimonies. I was honestly surprised.
DAY 6: This was the last day, or the clean up day. We packed up all our stuff and left. The End.

But, over all, Girl's Camp was awesome!

My Garden in July

 So far this year we have enjoyed eating tomatoes, summer squash, zucchini, lots of green beans, Swiss chard, & sugar snap peas.  I've also harvested kale seeds and cilantro seeds from plants that have gone to seed.  I had such good luck doing this with my Swiss chard last year that I want to gather my own seeds from other vegetable plants.  It's easy from fruits, but letting the leafy greens go to seed is annoyingly clutter-some to the eye.  It drives me crazy, but at the same time I kind of enjoy it too.

 Starting more sugar snap peas.

 We are trying sweet potato plants this year.

 Swiss Chard and Onions

 Cantalope

 My tomatillos....another thing I'm trying this year.  We'll see how they turn out.

We've had soooo much rain this year.  It's great, but in some ways, it may be to much.  Things don't seem to be growing so well.  We're not alone other gardeners are saying the same thing.  To much rain and not enough sun.  I'll gladly take that over what is happening in the West.  They are having record high temperatures.

Thursday Fears, Fair and Fun...day 4 of our vacation

This is Cailin.

We went to the Salem Fair on the Fourth of July, or Independence Day. It was really fun. I went to the Pulaski County Fair a few years ago with a friend, and this one was a lot better. It had what seemed like a million more rides than were at the Pulaski County Fair.  

There were a lot of rides that I wanted to go on but their lines were WAY too long. But I went on a roller coaster. It was really fun. It wasn't a big roller coaster, but it was big enough for me to know what a roller coaster is like. There was also another one that was smaller that Delaney went on that I went on with her. It was really tiny, but Delaney liked it. I did, too. But...it was really small, so it wasn't that amazing. 

There were lots of really cool rides. I got an ice cream cone. It tasted like the one dollar ice cream cones from McDonalds, and it wasn't much bigger. And it was three times as much.

However, it was fair food and fair food does cost a lot.  

Mom took this picture from one of the two Ferris wheels. She forgot that Brianne hates elevators and took her on, too.  How would a Ferris wheel be any different? Brianne was crying entire time, not to mention that it was raining the whole time we were on the ride. 

We went to the Pancake Breakfast at the church. It was raining, so it took place inside.

After that, we went to Goodwill to look for pants for me for Girl's Camp, because I only had two pairs of pants. Liam found a crazy hat.

Brianne is happy.

She tries the hat out.

This was one of the rides at the fair that Liam went on. He really liked it, I think.

This was one of the Ferris wheels.

In that one is Delaney and Dad.  Delaney didn't want to get on any of the rides at first.  She was quite scared.  However, Dad convinced her to try this one with him.  If she didn't like it, she didn't have to go on any more.  She LOVED it.  She was giddy with excitement and tried many other types of rides.  I guess she overcame her fear of carnival rides.

Another Liam ride.

Dad and Connor got turkey legs. 

Connor here:   The above pictures shows my favorite part of the fair. In other words, I did not enjoy it, nor do I intend to go to another one anytime soon. If you want my opinion of the fair, it was seven hours of my life I'll never get back. 

There were these things all over the place.

This was the ride that Delaney and I went on. The little roller coaster. 

The blue one in the background was the one that I went on. 

Big bag of popcorn.  Mmmmmm, kettle corn, this whole bag cost $8.00, a steal when you consider the cost of other fair foods.

Teacup ride.

...I was blinking. Waiting in line to get on the ride.

There were racing pigs. I didn't get to see them, but Connor said they were cool.

And also, Connor didn't like the Fair. He thought it was too long. At least, I think that was what he didn't like about it.

Look at those stormy clouds!

My hair is all messy because it poured down rain when we were there.