Camp Point 2014

Ethan was able to attend overnight church camp for the first time! He was super excited and I was super nervous. They drove to Port Aransas for church camp on the beach...not quite like the church camp experiences I had with no AC, nasty showers, and dusty cabins!  He had a great time but did get a little homesick.  I still can't believe he made it almost a whole week away from home!  We were SO ready to have him back!

This was a little note that Caleb wrote him and put in his backpack the night before.  It says, "I will miss you. I love you Ethan. You are a good friend."  Aww!!!

He was all excited...until it was time to get on the bus and leave.  Then there were LOTS of tears. :-( He didn't want to go.  Totally reminded me of me as a kid.  It was SO HARD to hold in my tears and push him into that bus and tell him it would be ok.  I'm so thankful for my friends who went and were able to take care of him for me and send me messages to tell me he was fine. :-)

His friend Gray (my friend Wendy's son).

Gray, Tyler, and Will.

Caleb got a little alone outing with Mommy to McDonalds.

Just chilling on the couch all alone playing on my Kindle.

All of the rest of these pictures were either sent to me or I stole off of Facebook. :-)



His "cabin" of boys.



Playing at the pool...really looks like church camp, huh?

Devo time.

Game time.

His empty room waiting for him...  :-(

Getting ready for morning devo.

Devo on the beach.  What a rough camp...

Brownie and phone time at night before bed.  He would text us at night.  I was never so glad for him to have a phone!!

Living the life of luxury all alone.

While at camp, they went to the Ronald McDonald House to help clean up and organize.

Eating some fried chicken on the beach.  Great camp cooking!

Ethan's cabin with "Uncle James" and "Aunt Clarissa".  James is actually sort of related to Mondo.

And of course Ethan was hanging out with the high school girls.  Oh dear...

I didn't get to go pick him up.  I think I was asleep after work or maybe I was at work.  So glad to have that boy home!!!

Thanks for taking such great care of my boy!

Mondo's Company Trip to Sarasota

Mondo's company sends the top sellers on a company trip each year.  We were super excited to be able to go this time!  It was in Sarasota, Florida...somewhere we haven't been before.  It was nice to be able to have an alone trip without the kids but we sure were missing them by the last night and were ready to get home! (And remember from my last post that we had to shuffle the kids around between Traci and my sickly parents and Camp Thurman...whew!)

The first night we were there we had dinner with several of his fellow salesmen at the hotel restaurant. 

Hotel pool...that we never got in.  Why would we when there's a beach nearby?!

Now we did get in this pool!  This was a shuttle ride away from our hotel.  It was a private pool and private access to the beach for our hotel only.  It was so pretty and not crowded.

Um ya, I totally got used to that view!

We had some beach side fish tacos.  And I SWEAR that Mondo's are WAY better! 

We were having a lovely time and them this nasty cloud was crawling closer and closer.  We decided we had had enough beach time and it was time to go inside!

All dressed up for his awards dinner.

We had some fabulous food!

All of his group getting their award pins.

I made him take this picture with his pin on.  I'm such a mom. ;-)

Of course the activity he chose was golfing!  I went along for the ride...and there was only one other wife there.  It was a really beautiful course!  But...it was Florida so within a couple of hours is was steamy hot.  I was a little miserable by the time we left.

One of the nights we went out to dinner with his manager and his team.

The last night we had a big party! It was a more casual dinner with PLENTY of desserts to choose from.  I was in heaven!

There was a lot of dancing...but not from Mondo and I.  We had a table right by the dance floor so it was really more amusing to watch everyone else!  One of his co-workers did manage to get me on the dance floor for one group dance.

We had a great time but were so ready to get home to our babies!  And I'm sure Nana and Papa were glad to see us too. ;-)

Camp Thurman

The boys had been looking forward to Camp Thurman since the previous summer!  And when was it?  The exact same week as Mondo's company trip. :-/ It was super stressful to figure out what to do with the boys and get them shuffled around.  My dad was in the middle of chemo and mom was still recovering from a knee surgery.  We were going to just not go but we got it worked out.  My bestie Traci offered to keep the boys for 2 nights since her boys go to the same camp.  Then my mom took them the last night.  Thanks T!!!

 

I was able to drop them off on their first morning of camp before we left.  All of the rest of the pics are from the camp website.  I LOVE that they take pics!

He LOVED the zipline.  That was his favorite part of camp.

All of Caleb's little campers.

His counselors.

Ethan loved the zipline too!

Yikes!!

Ethan's camp friends.

Ethan's counselors.

They already can't wait to go again next year!!

Caleb's End of School Party

Caleb had his end of kindergarten party a few days before school got out.  It was a pretty easy party to manage.  It was all outside on their patio and involved a lot of water games.  It got cloudy and threatened to rain but luckily the sun came out so they had a great party!

 

Playing in the sand boxes.

Squirty water toys.

Working really hard to blow bubbles. ;-)

Looking cool dude!

Limbo.  They were moving so fast I couldn't get a pic that wasn't blurry!

Playing "over under" with a wet sponge.

All decked out in his party favors after school.  Bring on summer time!