Camping

This last weekend found us packing the mini van to the brim (what are we going to do when we have to leave the third row seats up?) and taking our little family camping. We went with my cousin, his wife and their three boys, my brother Michael and his wife Paula, and my two little brothers Mat and Marcus.

Although I'm not sure I would recommend sleeping in a tent on an air mattress at thirty-six weeks pregnant, we did have a lot of fun.

Little Man and Cousin D. These two are only a month and a half apart and they have so much fun whenever they are together. They played non-stop for two and a half days and I don't think they even fought once.

They played football (with their own set of rules), explored, rode bikes, and basically just ran themselves ragged.

The big news of the weekend was Little Man learning to ride a bike with no training wheels! We had brought his bike with training wheels still attached, but after seeing Diego's bike with no training wheels he wanted to try it. He started with Diego's bike, which was a little smaller then his and with bigger wheels, and after gaining confidence on that insisted that we take of his training wheels immediately. Mike took him out and he just started riding! We had thought this would be a hard thing to teach him, but he took right to it.

He and Diego were constantly asking someone to take them on a bike ride. They did go on several rides over the weekend and on some of them were even riding on dirt trails. Little man handled them like a pro. When we got home yesterday, Mike took him cruising around the neighborhood and he had no problems. I can't believe he can ride a bike! Now we just need to get Baby Boy out and big enough to ride in a bike trailer or seat with Kiwi and we could go on a family bike ride.

Happy 4th of July!

Rain boots were the most commonly worn feet apparel of the five and younger crowd. There was no shortage of mud.

The kids stayed up late every night sitting around the fire with us and of course eating S'mores.

Little Man and Uncle Marcus.

It didn't rain all weekend,which we were grateful for, but it was a little chilly especially in the shade so we spent a lot of time hanging out at the campfire.

All the kids minus Baby Max who wouldn't sit still long enough for a picture

The kids had so much fun playing together and I so enjoyed spending time with my family.

I don't think that there is a word that could describe Little Man at the end of the weekend. Dirty doesn't even begin to do him justice. I am happy to report that after a good scrub down shower yesterday we were able to find our little boy under the thick layer of dirt he brought home with him.

I had to throw this picture in of Mike teaching Little Man to ride. The way he is kind of fuzzy and in the trees looks like I captured a shot of Big Foot.

I did wimp out on our original plan of three nights and we ended up packing up and heading home after the firework show late Sunday night (I just didn't know if I could do one more night on the air mattress!), but I am so glad we went though and look forward to many more annual Cousin Camp-outs. Next year we need to try and get some of our Iowa, California, New Mexico, and Texas cousins to join us.