Honeymoon? Let's take the kids camping!

This is just a quick photo preview of our week. I will post an album on facebook which should take just under a week to upload.


Well we took our annual camping trip this summer. Not even a wedding was gonna get in the way of that. Lucky for us, Ben is an avid camping but refused to call what we do camping due to the fact there is running water, an out house, and food that we did not kill ourselves. well pooh,pooh. Our regular campsite, Outlet Bay, that we have gone to for the past 13 yrs. was out of service due to repairs. Yes, odds are we caused the damage. So after we sat there in our van stunned for a few minutes we headed out in search of a new campground, which apparently real campers don't use those either. pashaw!

Reeder Bay became our home away from home for the following week. Now you may thinking about pitying the poor souls at Reeder Bay but fear not! We had nothing on the group two campsites down from us. They played the bagpipes every night for about 30-45 minutes. No, they did not keep this melodious music to just themselves. They packed up the back of the truck and drove around campsites sharing the love.

We worked good as a team getting the site set up so we could hurry down to the lake. Really my sole purpose of camping. Daniel, Ike and Forbush had their own tent and then Ben, Jake, Anna,Maria, and myself had another tent set up as far away as possible (all of 10 feet) from the boys stinky tent.



Anna enjoying her sandwich and a bit of a rest from playing in the water.

Ben grabbing a much needed powernap with Maria keeping him company reading her favorite Fancy Nancy book. What? You don't know who Fancy Nancy is?? Well go look her up. Every 5 yr. old girl loves Fancy Nancy.

Ben teaching Ike how start a fire with one square of TP and flint. Because I really the kid needs to learn how to start fires in variety of ways. ha ha ha

Jakey and the girls chilling on their side of the tent after dinner.

A very blurry picture of the girls. I needed to clean my camera lense.

Hanging out at the site #7.

Picking wild raspberries coming back from swimming. On Friday night we had breakfast dinner. Berry pancakes, eggs, corn cakes,bacon and sausage. Yum Yum the kids easily ate 60 pancakes that night. It was insane.

My co-pilot.

The three youngest usually ate at the little table because we could not all fit at the picnic table.

Yet, another blurry picture of the girls.

All in all it was a very sucessful trip. We did not have any rain this year. In fact it was blisteringly hot.

We found some amazing hiking trails and got some beautiful pictures from there. I will also put those in the facebook album.

Yes, I know I have not posted a blog about our wedding. Thank you for your gentle and not so gentle reminders. I promise to do that posting next. :)

Stuff I cannot make up, even in my wildest dreams....

Ben and I went to our first Football Booster Club meeting just to get info on what is going on this season. Turns out I almost missed the First Annual "Huddles and Heels" event. GASP!





I have been so busy trying to keep up on the current events via "Ladies Home Journal"








So Huddles and Heels is a chance for us ladies who are just baffled by this complicated game called "Football" As the very kind lady pointed out, "Now we will no longer bother our husbands with annoying questions while they they are trying to watch the game." Ben knows me well enough to actually grab a hold of my leg just to make sure I was not going to jump up and throttle the chick.

Not only is it an evening with Coach Sharkey, yes that is his real name. But also wine tasting and a lovely fashion show from a local boutique put on by the cheer leaders!! I don't know about you but that just seems like a evening of FUN,FUN,FUN!!

The coach will be there to give us one on one attention and explain the game and answer all our embarrassing questions about the game so we don't have to look silly in front of our husbands. SERIOUSLY....THESE ARE HER WORDS!!!

And all this humiliation only costs $20!!!!

So all you clueless women out there who don't want to appear stupid about football in front of there dear sweet husbands and much less pester him with annoying questions not to mention WINE!! and a lovely fashion show put on by cheer leaders to further damage our fragile self esteem.....this night is for you! I hope they choke on a stiletto.

Introducing the newest member of the family. Thank goodness I did not have to birth him.

Blogger is being a pain in the butt and only allowing me to post one picture at a time and then has the nerve to take f o r e v e r to up load it. grrr

i have a few minutes so i will work with what i got here.

This here is Mr. Benjamin Guhl. He had the crazy idea to marry me and in so doing become the step dad to my brood. Just proves that he is just crazy enough to blend right in.

We finally found a camp chair big enough for him at Big 5 but sadly it was not for sale. Anna and Maria wanted a chance to sit in the chair and this is also a rare picture of Ike smiling for reals and not just trying to look cool.

We went to Spokane's own Highlands Games. Hmmmm, how do discribe the event......we will go with "Less than impressed." Ike, Jake and Ben tried out the archery tent. They had big q-tip shaped arrows and you tried to hit some poor sap dressed up as a knight.

Jakey got a bit of instruction.

umm, i don't know who is shooting in this picture. I think it was Ike.

We also got to try genuine Haggis. The real deal. It smelled, less than appetizing. Looked a bit like a gigantic sausage. I guess that is because that is what it is. Jakey took a sniff and gave his to Ike. Daniel ate the girls samples. Ben had no desire to try it because he had already experienced the pleasure of haggis. I got to try some. The pictures are on Ben's camera. I will try to get them up loaded tomorrow. I went into this with a game plan. Bite and swallow. The haggis knew of this game plan and came up with a plan of it's own. The moment I bit down it exploded into thousands of little bits of guts, organs and things i tried not to identify inside my mouth. forcing me to pick it out of my teeth and cheeks with my tongue. Well played, Haggis. Well played. P.S Daniel and Ike loved it. They said it tastes just like my mom's meat loaf. HA HA HA HA

Okay, This time it's for reals

Okay my fellow readers. Sorry I have been so remiss on posting. We are very busy working on projects around the house. Romantic I know. But when we got back from California the shower was running really slow. So that was our first project. Then we needed to fix the liner on Big Red. It started falling down on our way to California. Next was a rack to hang all the cast iron pots and pans so we can free up shelf space. Between the two of us we have a lovely selection. Right now as I type Ben is putting up hooks in the bathroom so we can hang our towels up, I never got around to putting those back up after the remodel, and finishing the trim on the bathroom door.



So on Thursday the Stoddards stayed at the beach house and we wondered off to that day's Culteral Enrichment activity. The Long Beach Aquarium. It was so much fun. We had booklets that we got to emboss at each attraction. Because the aquarium was so large, at least for us, it let us know that we had seen everything there was to see by the time our "passports" were all stamped.

They had a jellyfish touch tank. Touch tanks are where you can pet the sea creatures. Jelly fish are surprisingly solid.

And fascinating to watch.

One of the tanks was three stories tall. It was so beautiful. Sadly the pictures do not do it justice.

This is the "Papa/Grandpa" sea ray. I think I see why the three little ones were so sure it looked just like Vertie and Rick. His top lip is frilled so it looked like a mustache and he looked like he was smiling because of the gills on either side of his mouth.

This is the shark touch tank. No petting the ray! But there were plenty of sharks to pet. I was surprised that all the kids enjoyed petting the sharks.

Here is Maria showing some love to Mr. Sharkie.

They had touch tanks with sea anenomes, star fish, sea urchins, sea slugs, and lots of other fun and bizzarre sea life.

Trying to get caught up.

i am too tired. i will try again tomorrow.

Number 513 of my wishlist checked off

Last Wednesday evening at 5:15 pm my mom and I went to the Crab Cooker. I guess this was a place that she and my dad went to a few times back in the day, before they had kids, and still had hopes and dreams. Idid not take my children, knowing they would not appreciate the crab. Instead I ordered pizza for them. They were so excited about getting pizza that is actually delivered to your door. Don't they realize all the pizza they get is delivered to their door......by their MOTHER! :)


We split and order of Alaskan King crab legs and crab cakes. Came with a side of cheesy mashed taters and slaw. Very good taters and slaw. But the star of the show was the crab. Served with lots and lots of butter.




Yes, I admit it. I looked.

You are served on paper placemats on paper plates with plastic cups and plastic utinsels. Very, very swanky joint. Water is served only upon request.

Surprisingly we did not try the "worlds best clam chowder" because it was Maine clam chowder and mom and I both prefer New England style clam chowder.

We both walked home full as could be. And then proceeded to have terrible nightmares all night long. Weird. We concluded it was because our bodies were not used to such rich food. I have come to the conclusion that I need to eat like that more often so my body can adapt.

One week already?

we have visited lots of local spots in between getting sunburned at the beach. for a few days we had a very strict "No slapping anyone on the back." rule. One of our stops was Balboa Pier. It has a merry go round which the girls flocked to almost as fast as they flocked to the cottoncandy.

Daniel and Ike did the ferris wheel. it took me 12 shots to finally get one of their cart. Ihave a lot of the cart behind them.

They have a nifty nautical museum too! With Ike's love of fishing he was more than happy to pose with this giganitic fish. I am stunned I finally have a picture of him smiling!

Jake

Maria

Anna is at the wheel.

They had touch tanks too. the kids got to touch starfish and sea slugs. i was all for the starfish. as for the sea slugs.turns out i like them as much as their relatives, the land slugs.

one of the MANY model boats they had. the kids had a lot of fun looking at these.

I have a variety of bedmates. The other night i walked in and was suprised by this princess. I love how she had herself and blanket all laid out just so and how her toes are peeking out.

Then on another day we went to Balboa Island. The candy shop and toy store were very popular stops. Of course we had to get a picture of Bessie. The girls were more than happy to pose.

Anna magnifying her magnificent smile for me. I did not notice this until i uploaded the pictures.

Maria begging me to take them out into the ocean to jump waves.

An end to another wonderful day of playing on the beach. Ice cream out on the patio. :)

Ike burying Anna.

Anna and Maria building castles in the surf. I guess they have not gotten the gist of the primary song, " The wise man built his house up on the rock."

Well as you can imagine i have a lot more pictures to share. I will try and get those posted soon.