Day 17; June 25, 2010

We broke camp at 9:15 a.m. and headed over to Hayspur for another night of camping and some fishing.  The kids had been talking about fishing for weeks.

With Granddad's help Sheila caught three fish (after the first one she wouldn't even hold the pole but still claimed she caught them.)  Mommy and Granddad enjoyed them for dinner.  The others not so much.  Timmy wasn't so lucky because he would pull his hook out of the water ever few seconds.

 Kimberly enjoyed playing outside. 

For the rest of the time we just relaxed and played games.

Halloween

Halloween is a big time for our family.  We started off with the Ward Trunk or Treat.  Kimberly was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.  Timmy was Lightning McQueen's Pit Crew.  Sheila was Ariel.

I looked for a wig (and now know about the cute yarn wigs thanks to Rachel) but couldn't find any red hair ones for little girls without devil horns so we sprayed her hair.  It didn't wash out yet.  She still has pink/red highlights.

 Next was Sheila's school party.  Timmy joined for the parade.  He put his hat on backwards himself.

 Then back to the classroom for a snack.

And of course we had our pumpkin carving.  Sheila and Timmy picked out little pumpkins that we intended just to have them draw faces on but the insisted they be carved too.

 Both turned out cute and unique.

Finally we trick and treated around the neighborhood. I had a hard time getting all three together for a picture.

Sheila dressed up her doll and took her along.  The doll was a princess.  Timmy and Kimberly got tired after just doing our loop so I went home with them to hand out candy and Ray took Sheila around the rest of the neighborhood.  I don't know if it was because of the Saturday/Sunday confusion but there weren't as many houses participating and also we didn't have as many trick or treaters and had some candy left.

Sheila's first day of Kindergarten

I know this is a little late but Sheila started kindergarten on August 13.  I was able to get her in a regular class this year and she has transitioned well.  She only goes to speech now.  She has made several friends in her class.  There are 17 students. I tried to get a picture of her with her back pack when we got there but she wouldn't have any of that.

She rides the bus everyday. She gets on at before 7and home a little before 3.  She has lunch at school but since she is a picky eater I am starting to send lunches with her more often.  I figured her lunches to send cost between $1-$1.50 depending on what I send her when school lunches cost $2.  If she only drinks the milk and eats one think it is not worth buying the lunch at school. (And that is what she does sometimes.)

Day 16; June 24, 2010

 We spent Day 16 at Craters of the Moon.  We walked the lava flow trail and saw different forms of lava.

 Grandma and Sheila take a break.

 So did Kimberly.

 Later Granddad and our family went out to the caves.  We ended up only doing a couple with the kids.

 Kimberly went down into them all with Kimberly.

Here we make our way down Indian Tunnel.  The largest of the cave/tunnels open to the public.  Some of it was open to the sky because of cave ins and we did have to climb over some rocks.

Sheila and Timmy did such a great job.  Here we are at the end.  Sheila and Granddad are about to climb out the opening.  Ray ended up going up first to help Timmy and then have me hand up Kimberly.  After this cave Sheila was tired so I took the girls back to the car and the boys went to the last caves but it was too scary for Timmy so they came back.  In the afternoon Ray and I went back out and went down into the caves.  I couldn't go all the way into Boy Scout Cave since I got too scared.  At the far back of Beauty cave there was a couple trying to take a long exposure picture of the pool of water.  It was a lot deeper than I remembered.

Here is Grandma and the girls relaxing outside their trailer.  I think the kids over all enjoyed Craters of the Moon.  Maybe in a few years we will come back when they are older and do more of the hiking trails.

Kimberly's First Birthday

On October 12, Kimberly turned 1 year old.  But because the 11th was the holiday and both Daddy and Sheila were home during the day we decided to have her party that day.  Grandma and Papa Walden also came over.

Kimberly didn't quite get opening presents.  I tried to show her how to tape them.  I was accused of using too much tape again.  For the kids I barely use enough to keep the paper on but I am a neat wrapper so sometimes the seams are hard to get at.

Sheila and Timmy took over the tearing into the presents and poor Kimberly could hardly get to them.  She also wanted everything immediately out of the boxes so she could play with them.

This is one of her favorites although she needs help getting on it.  She mostly just pushes it around with stuff in the basket and pushed the button to get the music going.

 We got two cakes, one for her and one for us to eat. 

 She actually kept her hat on.  She looked so cute.

So I thought she might eat her cake by herself since she loves sweets and has dug into stuff in the past but after touching the frosting she didn't want anything to do with it.  Sheila tried to help.  Kimberly ended up sharing with me and later the other kids ate her cake since it was mostly frosting it seemed and the other two love frosting.

Day 15; June 23, 2010

We headed for Craters of the Moon in the morning.  My parents took their trailer and we took ours.  We have a really long trailer so finding a spot big enough was a little difficult.  At first we found two spots across the street from each other but then a couple was vacating the one next to the other open spot and so we were able to take the two camping sites next to each other.  Grandma and the girls were wearing hats but Kimberly didn't like hers much.

 This little guy was our visitor every day.  I did get close to him but I really used my zoom to get this good of a picture.

We went out to see the spatter cone, (and climb it) snow cones, (they have snow down inside them my pictures didn't turn out that good) and inferno cones.  The two little people in the middle are Timmy and Sheila.  They ran up it almost all the way to the first peak.  The top had two false tops.  Where it looked like it ended there would be more.  Everyone climbed it except my mom, Kimberly, and the dog.

 Finally we made it to the true top.

We took a walk through Devil's Orchard too.  It mostly has signs telling about the different vegetations.

Quote of the day: That campground is dirty.  I want you to clean it.--Timmy (the dirt is black because of it's an old lava flow.)

Day 14; June 22, 2010

Kimberly enjoyed my parents' dog's toys more than the baby toys they had.  We couldn't keep her out of the basket.

We went to City of the Rocks for a day trip.  Timmy loved seeing the big rocks.  They don't make them this big in Florida.

I thought there would be more rocks for the kids to climb on.  It was great place for rock climbers and we found some good rocks for the kids to climb on.

 We all climbed this rock formation except my mom.

 Ray decided to climb up a rock formation to a tree up the cliff a little bit.  Turned out it was further and steeper than he anticipated.

 Sheila followed him up and he had to help her down.

 After the City of the Rocks we drove out to Mt. Harrison to find snow for the children.  We found a big drift over the road.  Sheila wanted dry snow.  But after a little coaxing they had the time of the their lives playing in it.  Making a small snow man, making and throwing snowballs, and making snow angels.