Summertime awesomeness!!

So since my last gigantic mega post I am now all inspired to get completely caught up on everything and start fresh back into the world of the blogesphere. (it's a word, look it up)
So if you look at the time stamp on this post you'll notice that we are half way through July. A lot has happened already this summer and I have dropped the ball on documenting it. Egad!! How has this happened?Well I'll tell you. I have been busier doing it than I have been documenting it. It happens. So here's what we have done thus far.

The first official week of summer we hitched up the trailer and went camping with 2 other families. Between all of us we had 13 kids total. They had a blast running a muck over here and there. We even had one of the other kids break their arm. Because it's just not a family get away without a major injury.
We had fun though. hanging around the fire, playing volleyball and making smores.

Here are some of the highlights.....Sunshine is decidedly the checker champion of our family. I let her win the first game and then she whipped us all on her own the rest of the weekend. She was pretty tickled with herself.
This is where I spent the better part of my weekend. Our cut throat volleyball game.Then here are some cool pictures Jason got with his phone using hipsomatic. It just puts cool filters on it and makes it look all vintage.We have our cute little vintage trailer.
Then there was the making of the smores.

All in all we had a great time.

Next was the 4th of July.

This year we did it a little different. My mother in law got us all tickets to see the Broadway production of the Lion King that was in town and they happened to fall on the night of the 4th of July.
I have only one word for this production.
AMAZING!!!!

It was an awesome combination of puppetry and stage production. The kids , especially Peanut was mesmerized for 3 hours straight. It was an awesome gift from my mother in law. I have such a deep love for all things Broadway related and it was fun to be able to watch it through my kids eyes and see them get excited for the same reason that I love it.After the performance got out, it was about 9 at night so almost time for fireworks downtown. There was a ton of people pushing their way into the perfect viewing spot. We had parked on the other side of the river to avoid the parking nightmare that was surely to follow on 4th of July downtown. So we made our way across the bridge through the masses with 3 kids in tow. We were able to get out of the crowds a little and find a decent spot to watch them. We were even close enough that we could see the barge that they were shooting them off of in the river. So that was cool. They were going off literally right over head. In fact we were showered with paper and debris from the mortar shells.
Then these next pictures I realize are not the best of quality, but they crack me up and speak a thousand words.
The kids lit off some of their fireworks and were all tickles as they were smoking. Then realized they were probably standing too close and should get out of there and fast. It just sort of cracked me up to see these pictures in sequence.Then last but not least.......Bug at the ripe old age of 9, finally, FINALLY, lost his front tooth. Almost all of his friends have not only lost their teeth, but have a full set of adult teeth. He got his late as a baby, so in turn lost them late too. His dentist was not too concerned. It it rare to do it this late, but it does happen. it doesn't help that he is sort of skeeved out at the thought of pulling out his own teeth so he was not exactly in there moving things along by making them loose. So they literally just need to fall out of his head on their own accord. The prospect of money doesn't even motivate him. He just sort of marches to his own little drummer and you just can't make him do something he isn't ok with. Whatever. We're one step closer now. If only we could work on getting the other one out at the same time so it doesn't look so goofy :)At the rate he's going, he's going to be shaving when his adult teeth come in.

The Coston's cabin

So we have this cabin that we go to every summer. It is in remote central Oregon. It's a little log cabin with no electricity and a propane powered water heater. The whole place is wired for propane so we do have lights but it is pretty primitive. My in laws have been going since their kids were knee high and I have been going since I married in so this is something that we do every year without fail.

It is nestled along side a little lake stocked with tons of trout. There are also several osprey nests along the lake. The whole place is teaming with wildlife but not a lot of people. Some years we have been up there and not seen another person aside from our own family for the whole week.

The kids had a blast fishing and swimming and canoeing. We saw tons of deer and went on nature walks. All in all we had a great time.

4th of July weekend

Last weekend was 4th of July and my Mom and I decided to nab Sunshine and have us a girls weekend getaway. We had been reading about some really cool events going on up in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. So we felt we needed to investigate. You see my mom and I are newly obsessed with this magazine called "MaryJanes farm". Check her out here. She is awesome beyond all belief. She teaches us how to make most everything from scratch, grow our own everything and do it all in a nifty apron. She is based out of Moscow, Idaho but was opening her second store in Coeur d"Alene. She was having a big grand opening and would be there to sign copies of her newest book. Naturally like obsessed groupies we had to find a way to get there.

My mom has a cute little travel trailer that we all would fit comfortably in, so we loaded up the cooler with what we had on hand and away we went. We stayed the first night in Umatilla up the Gorge and the other 2 nights we stayed in Spokane, Wa.

We had a great time camping and just goofing around. We got to meet MaryJane and had a wonderful time in Coeur d'Alene. We enjoyed the 4th of July parade and festivities on the lake all day. We swam and played in the park , and the fireworks over the lake were incredible.

It was a lot of fun with my mom and daughter just hanging out being silly girls. Something we don't get to do often enough but I think we need to make this an annual thing for the 4th of July.

camping

This past weekend we went camping at Fort Stevens outside of Astoria on the coast. My mom joined us in her trailer. We were in our 3 room tent. We had a blast. We stayed 2 nights and the campground was really nice. It was loaded with bike trails so we all loaded up , (Nana too) and hit the trails. We went on a 5 mile ride to the beach and a cool shipwreck and then on to the abandoned battery.

The kids had a blast all weekend making friends at the campground and riding their bikes all over the place. They had a great time. We will definitely be visiting again this summer.