Camp!

I don't often get camp pictures, but they started a super sekrit Facebook group and they had a fantastic photographer this year, so yay! Camp pictures!

Dinner the first night:

Her group after successfully getting everyone through the spider web (they could only use each hole once):

The men with their skit at camp. President Chandler wrote a song.

The 4th years' camp got flooded out, so they got to stay up at the (air-conditioned) lodge.

Crossing the lake on the way to the naming ceremony. The idea came from Harry Potter. :-)

They were knighted as part of the naming ceremony.

 No idea. You'll have to ask Caitlyn.

The entire camp!

After a skit, maybe?

Being the victims for the first aid part.

Fishing

Every year the local paper sponsors a fishing clinic at the local nature center. It was initially supposed to be last week, but it got "rained" out. (It wasn't raining, but it could have so they canceled it.) It was rescheduled for yesterday, and since Russell and Caitlyn were at camp, I got to take Alison and Kristen.

It was hot -- 95 -- and Alison ended up getting dehydrated (she never does drink enough water) and she gave up after 40 minutes of nothing happening. Kristen, however, had a fantastic time!

Oh: and Kristen and I made the story in the paper. It's pretty great.

The Many Silly Faces of Alison

We finally got around to taking Alison's 11-year-old pictures (they're 11 1/2 year old pictures now), and as we were going through choosing, I noticed that Alison makes some pretty silly faces when she gets her pictures taken.

Here's a few of them:

What a girl!

Flogging Molly (Riverfest, Part 3: Friday)

Okay, I have to admit this: I had heard OF Flogging Molly, but I couldn't name any of their songs. But, I figured a Celtic-Ska band couldn't be a bad concert. And I don't know the last time Russell and I went anywhere together without children in tow.

So, we went.

We sat in the back(ish) with other old(ish) people, but the music was good, the people watching was fun, and we had a good time.

They're a total bar band, egging the crowd on, and the fans (those who were Truly fans) loved it.



It was good to get out, and a concert included in the price of a Riverfest button was totally worth it.

And More Riverfest! (Part 2: Thursday)

We headed back Thursday, primarily to get Cajun food for dinner. Yum! (We didn't take pictures of that this year.) And then, we headed to the river, nominally to go paddle boating.

It was, unfortunately, a bit of a bust. They had all the paddleboats tethered to ropes and made you paddle up the river a ways and back as a "test" before letting you go on your own on the river. I understand the reasoning: because of the rain, the river is pretty high this year. However, they were a bit sexist: Russell and Kristen got let off the tether pretty quickly, while Alison, Marie, and I went a good ways up and back and they never gave us the okay. Alison was quite mad.

We did manage to take a couple of pictures.

So, as a consolation prize, we let them play in the fountain. (We'd noticed on Wednesday that the cops weren't enforcing the "no playing in the fountain" rule.)

Marie and I were sensible and didn't get wet.

And that's about all we did. We only had an hour and a half to spend, and we spent it well!

Riverfest! (Part 1: Wednesday)

We finally had a free day on Wednesday to go down and enjoy what Riverfest had to offer. Marie and Caitlyn had better offer -- a party at a friend's house -- so we just took Alison and Kristen and headed out.

First we had to ride this:

I was smart and stayed on the ground, but everyone else went for a ride.

Then we split up. Alison paid to go on the zipline across the river and back:

Kristen wanted to, but she still doesn't weigh quite enough. Maybe next year. So, she and Russell went exploring.

Then they found these:

 They had so much fun that when Alison and I finally found them, they had to do it again.

We wandered around some more and discovered a human foozball game. Of course, they had to play a while!

It was getting late, so we headed back to the food court and kids area so Alison could get this

And Kristen could interact with the animals.

It was a fun evening!