Time for some fun-Spring Break

Finally!  A week with no schedule and nothing to do with school...yes we are all burnt out from school.  Baseball was on the schedule for this past weekend but with a heavy rain at the end of the week fields were cancelled and with warmer weather coming we decided to take a quick camping trip to Greenleaf State Park.  It was a little rough at the beginning as the rain which was supposed to be cleared out by Saturday afternoon hung around...a lot longer.  Yes, my kids were the ones huddled around electronics under a picnic area for three hours waiting out the rain.  The one time I dont take a single card game...thinking it was going to be 75 and sunny, I never can get it right.  We decided to wait it out-with much debate and enjoyed a muddy weekend enjoying the outdoors.  I think you could smell us miles away after two days of tenting in the damp wet mud-but the kids had a blast!

 I have to say it has been a while since we have tented...just a short trip like this.  I think my brain was ready for a break, some how we arrived without the camp stove and no charcoal???  what was I thinking.

 We really enjoyed the canoe-this was in the morning after all the rain... the lake and lots of scum floating on it, pushed down from the river.  On one ride in the evening the scared up a bunch of beavers-lots of water whacking/loud.  The first night lilly was restless and after I finally decided to get up with her we heard again the huge water whacking right by out tent, more beavers!

link to canoe race video

 There was a lot of people fishing-but hardly saw anyone catch any.  I think the water was too cold-although on Monday there were kids swimming!  Even my kids thought that was a little crazy.

 The kids love cheetos-puffs, they wanted a picture of the party size bag.

 totally dirty, stinky...totally happy.  He loved to ride his bike to the park and bathroom and would just zoom over the  grass coming back into camp.

 Becca collected a bunch of little sticks to help with the fire-lots of lighter fluid as even the wood we bought was wet.

 Brayden loves playing frisbee...and with anyone he can convince to play.  Too bad Lilly is obssessed with it as well.

 Lots of craziness

 Hot dogs over a smoky fire-and for dessert our new favorite sweet, cones with marshmallows and chocolate.  We didn't even have smores.

 An evening canoe ride out to turtle ally-Brayden and Becca loved to take the canoe out- a little nerve racking for me.  I can only imagine those two together trying to catch turtles.  Brayden stands up or is half out the boat, but in the back trying her best to keep the boat upright...what a trip!

Another dirty but happy kid-they loved to play in the fire-she found some friends at the playground and spent a lot of time on the merry-go-round.

 Monday we headed out around the lake for a hike-lots of mud but still fun.

 The kids had fun sitting on this log...until Ron pushed on it and it cracked, they all moved/jumped off pretty fast.

 James spotted this sitting in a tree over hanging the water---gives me the shivers!

 Hanging bridge is always fun.

 We looked for our old Geo Cache that we hid around 10 years ago-crazy!  we could find it but ended up making it to this beautiful stream.

 We ended the hike at the spillway...lots of water, so loud we could hear it across the lake at our camp site.

 This was unloading-pretty wet but everyone was ready to help and start having fun.

 The shoes were a lost-I have never smelled such stinky feet!