Camping

Don't worry, this one is mostly pictures.

For a week we were lucky enough to have 2 of our nieces, Maddie and Alexa, come stay with us.  (Must be a theme this summer - nieces at our house.)  Their 3 younger siblings all battled e Coli, which was horrible for them, but Maddie and Alexa were fine.  So we had a great time playing at the museum and playing with friends and going to the Y to swim.  Their favorite part of the whole week was camping, even though the camping trip was a mild disaster.  Turns out that they'd never been camping before.  So it was a treat for them.

Tin foil dinners:

 Cuteness:

Craziness:

Here's Rob the Amazing:

I would like you to note the van in the background.  Turns out that if you leave it with the doors open for an entire evening, which makes the interior lights stay on, then the battery will be dead in the morning.  Rob tried to blame this on the kids.  Pretty sure it was all of us.

Hiking:

Rob sprained his ankle while chasing away a cat.  Yep.  Super manly, right?  But he wrapped it up and toughed it out and despite my objections, he went hiking with the family.  "I'm not going to spoil the fun for everyone," he said.  By the end of the day his ankle was swollen to double the normal size.  It was gross.  I'm a bruise-lover, but this one was outrageously disgusting.  He stayed off it for weeks, and it's still tender. 

The dog loved hiking:

All the kids on the trail:

Swimming in the river:

It started raining while the kids were in the river, so we went home and finished the rest of the camping-like things there.  And mild disaster or not, it was fun!  Good memories.