G&G Summer Camp Part 5 - Children's Festival

Our annual summer visit to Grandma and Grandpa's fortunately coincided again with The Children's Festival.  The kids went for the first time last year and loved it.  Luckily for us, this year it was about 15 degrees cooler than it was last year.  Also, thanks to Grandma's new robo-knees, she was able to attend with us, and scaled the hill like a boss.

Leah at the macaroni necklace table

Leah and I spent a lot of time in Mother Goose Land, while G&G headed up the hill with the big boys.

Sister got to meet the Festival Queen, and was dubbed an official princess.

meeting Mother Goose

When we finally met up with the big boys, we discovered that they had not been quite as productive with their time.  Jake had wandered around, not seeing anything he wanted to do, and Austin and Grandma had been standing in line at the same place, waiting to get a super face paint job.

I took over in line while Grandma and Peanut waited patiently, and Grandpa and Jake tried to find something (anything) that he wanted to do.

The final product - amazing!  

Jake finally settled on carving a face in clay....  Maybe next year we'll leave him home.  :)

G&G Summer Camp Part 4 - "Tucker"

Leah is a horse girl, through and through.  She has been somewhat obsessed with them for sometime, and it's not just cute plastic figurines she's into.  From a very young age, she has been comfortable around the big animals, and sits like a natural in the saddle.  As we drove towards Medford on our vacation, I told her that if she asked Grandpa he might take her to see the Clydesdale's that live up the road from their house.  

Shortly after our arrival Grandpa made good on her request, only to discover that they had been sold and were no longer in their pasture.  I was relating the sad tale to our good friend Penny, and she concocted a plan to have my kids visit her kids and see their horses.

Saturday morning we headed up to Josh and Kate's.  Grandpa got in the cowboy spirit and pulled out a hat I didn't even know he still owned.  Leah was in for a surprise - not only did they have a Belgian draft horse for her to see in place of the Clydesdale's (which were apparently also Belgians, my mistake) but Josh was prepared to give Leah a full horse experience.  He introduced her to "Tucker", and let her (and her brothers) brush him, help saddle him, and talked her through the whole thing, describing each step and piece of equipment.

Once the gentle giant was ready to go Leah got the first ride, and it was an extra special one.  Josh took her down into one of their lower fields, and sister got her first experience running on a horse.  Josh trotted her around the field several times, and upon their return Josh declared her "fearless!".

After Leah, the boys each got a turn walking up and down the driveway.

Someone came home happy, and tired.

Thank you Josh, Kate and Penny for such a wonderful morning!

G&G Summer Camp Part 3 - The Man Cave

One of Jacob's goals for our visit to G&G's this year was to spend some time in The Man Cave with Grandpa, building something.  They settled on a boat, with Jacob as designer and Grandpa figuring out how to make it happen.  They were quite the pair.

Austin liked hanging out and watching, but wasn't much interested in anything else.

After building came painting...

...and the finished product!

G&G Summer Camp Part 2 - Bingo!

Back by popular demand this summer - Bingo! with G&G.  Grandma started it with the kids last summer on our visit and they brought it back for this visit by special request from the kids, who loved it.  They each get a personalized Bingo sheet, each square holds some sort of activity for them to accomplish during the visit.  Walking with Grandpa, picking up sticks in Mike's yard, calling Dad, and making a craft are just some of the items on the list.

This year's Bingo had a twist.  G&G had hidden a special "capsule" for each grand kid somewhere in the yard, a little Geocaching if you will.  For every 5 stars the kids got on their Bingo cards, they received a clue as to the whereabouts of their Geocache.  The kids were hooked!  2 of the 3 got a clue at bedtime one night and insisted Grandpa give them the clue so they could go out right then and look for their prize.  Miss Leah's was hidden deep in the old fig tree in the back yard.

One of the kids activities was to pick up sticks in Mike's yard, for which he handsomely rewarded them  Some worked a little harder than others...

Some people supervised...

Some people spent their time playing with the traffic reflector...

Mike is an original.  How many people do you know who have skulls on their meter boxes?

Break time!

G&G Summer Camp Part 1 - And A Good Time Was Had By All

We spent the better part of last week at Grandma and Grandpa's for summer camp.  True to form, they had put a ton of thought and planning into our visit and and had a full schedule of fun on the agenda.  In between the outings, Bingo, Children's Festival and Geo-caching, there was a lot of wrestling, game playing, the traditional water fight,  and general merriment.

 G&G introduced us to a fun new dice game, which for the life of me, the name has escaped me.  But it was fun!  And addicting.  

 And even though it was summer camp, some people still got sent to time out.

 Every year on July 11 (7/11) there are free Slurpees all day at every 7-11.  You can bet these Slurpee lovin' kids hit them up.  Twice.