Mowing would have been more relaxing but not nearly as rewarding!

Dan's typical Saturday involves mowing, weed eating, blowing, watering, hoeing, weed killing, etc.  He is all about the yard and the garden on Saturdays.  However since we have received what feels like ZERO rain in the last month, the yard didn't really need to be mowed this Saturday.  (Although looking at it now, the weeds look like they have grown a couple of inches.  In fact, I think they are waving to me right now.  Perhaps doing a victory dance because they are about to overtake what little green grass is left?)

Since Dan didn't spend his whole Saturday tending the grass of the crops we decided to head out for a family hike.  We drove about an hour and fifteen minutes until we got to Stone Mountain State Park.  We visited this park last summer with Jennifer and her family.  There are some small waterfalls that people slide down.  It's good cheap redneck fun and we had a blast doing this last year.

This time we decided to hike up the mountian and then back down and around to a 300 foot waterfall.  The hike was FIVE miles.  For the first two miles Sarah whined about being tired and wanting to be carried.  For the second two miles Peter whined about being tired and wanting to just "be done already"!  And for the last mile, I kept thinking to myself, "why did we decide to hike a trail that was FIVE miles when the kids had a sleepover the night before and were tired and cranky to being with?" 

But we made it!  Even after all the whining and sweating and hiking up and hiking down we did it! 

The views were incredible.  We kept trying to tell the kids that anything worth doing is going to be hard sometimes.  I'm not sure they picked up on the life lesson we were trying to teach them.  They were just ready to get to the ice cream we promised them from the country store near the exit of the park.  (And quite honestly, the thought of the ice cream is what got me through that last hot and mostly upward mile.)

Here are some pictures of our hike.

Here we are before the hike.  All smiles - that won't last long!

Here we are on a stone carpet about half way up.

Here we are at the top

A tree growing out of the stone.

Happy to be at the top!

This is a view of the mountain from the other side. (Clearly we didn't climb this side!) It is 2300 feet about sea level. 

The kids on one of their many rest stops!

The 300 foot waterfall.  My picture doesn't capture how tall and magnificent it is!  After I took this picture, we had to hike back UP before we could enjoy our ice cream!

We've been at the pool...where else?!

It is the end of week two of summer vacation and we have been at the pool.  A lot.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing.  The kids are on the swim team so we are there for practice and then we stay to play.   The pool is just a few minutes from the house. Pool dues have been paid.  Swim team fees have been paid.  So I like the kids to swim their little hearts out until they are wrinkled and pink.  

It won't be long...probably mid-July...until the kids are totally over the pool and then they expect to start going places.  Places that cost extra money...like bowling, the movies, Chuck E. Cheese.  Places that I have to drive to...like the Children's Museum, the Nature Science Center, Chuck E. Cheese.  Places that are loud...like Chuck E. Cheese, Chuck E. Cheese and Chuck E. Cheese. 

There comes a point in the stay-at-home mom's summer that even Chuck E. Cheese sounds like a great place to go.  Thankfully, we haven't gotten to that point yet. 

So to the pool we go!

Here are some pictures of the swim meet from this past week:

There's a moral to this story...

Sarah turned seven on June 4th.  Her Daddy was out of town that day and we were scheduled to be at Peter's Amazing Race all afternoon.  So to make up for not being able to properly celebrate, I told her that after the Cub Scout event, we could go to dinner wherever she suggested. She happily agreed to this and off we went to the Amazing Race.

Sarah was very bored the whole time so I let her use my camera to photograph the event.  Most of the pictures from that afternoon were taken by Sarah and I think she did a pretty good job!

 The Pack was providing hotdogs and hamburgers and chips but we weren't eating there because we were going out for Sarah's birthday. Between taking pictures and telling me she was bored, I let Sarah have a couple of snack sized bags of Doritos.  I love Doritos but don't keep them around the house for fear I will eat them all...in one sitting.  (Doritos dipped in warm cream cheese is especially delicious.  I have an old college friend to thank for sharing that delicacy with me!) I didn't feel too bad about letting her have a couple of bags because I was eating some of them as well.

Towards the end of the event, her whining reached an all new level, I was trying to talk to some of the other moms as well as focus on the action, and I agreed to let her have another bag of chips.  I think this time it was Cheetos.

The event finally ended and we went to one of our favorite local restaurants.  This restaurant has a pizza bar which the kids love and the best wings around which I love.  So we were all happy.  Or so I thought.

Sarah had two bites of her pizza and wouldn't eat anything else until the waitresses came out clapping and singing Happy, Happy Birthday to Sarah.  They laid a nice hunk of cheesecake in front of her and she graciously agreed to let me and Peter share it with her.

Being serenaded by the waitresses.

My beautiful birthday girl!

Around 11:30 that night I could hear Sarah in her room coughing.  That's odd, I thought, hoping that she didn't have a cold and wondering if I should check on her. 

Then she started crying.  That's strange, I thought, hoping that she was just having a bad dream and wondering if I should check on her.

Then she started calling my name.  That's not good, I thought, realizing that something was wrong and it was probably going to involve changing the sheets and I better go check on her.

I went running into her room right as she started throwing up.

The volume was large.  The color was orange. The smell was...Doritos?!  (Yes, she threw up all of those Doritos.  Apparently she had more than I realized.)

I've learned one thing from this.  And no, it's not that I should monitor her Dorito intake more closely.

It's this...

No matter how much you love Doritos...throw up that smells like Doritos...is still throw up!

It was hot. I was sweaty. It must have been Field Day!

It was a hot one, but the kids had fun at field day.  At our school, K-2 rotate through different stations.  Everyone gets to play in every event and they all get a participation ribbon at the end. 

There was  lots of running, lots of jumping and lots of laughing.  I think we will call it a success!

Sarah's Daisy Bridging Ceremony

Sarah's Daisy troop ended their year with a spaghetti dinner and bridging ceremony.  Sarah has now officially bridged up to Brownies!  Here are some pictures:

Walking across the bridge.

Sarah's friend Cheyanne became a second year Daisy.

Being pinned.

The new Brownies singing the Brownie Smile song!

The Amazing Race - Pack 703 style!

Peter's Cub Scout Pack always ends their year with the Amazing Race.  The pack is divided up into teams of 4.  Each team is given a different color shirt to wear and then the games are on!

The teams competed in 8 events and accumulated points.  After a dinner break, the 5 teams with the most points continued to race with teams being eliminated after each event until we were down to only 3 teams.  The final 3 teams raced an obstacle course to see who would be the winner. 

The boys had so much fun.  They had races with shaving cream on their heads, races to see who could pick up fruit loops with straws in their mouths, races to see which team could dig in the sand and find hidden objects the fastest, races to see which team could build the highest block tower the fastest, slip n slide races, races with panty hose on their heads and tennis balls in the toes to see who can bat a ball down the field the fastest... 

The leaders that put this together did such a great job!  All of the boys had fun and Peter enjoyed it even more thanks to the second place finish of his team.