Camping at Pine Creek

We went camping this past weekend at Pine Creek with Ed's parents. It was a nice, relaxing time. I especially like camping because I don't have to do the cooking! I get all the groceries and decide the menu, but once we are up there, Ed (or in this case his dad) does all the cooking. It was decided that on this trip we would do the breakfast and his parents the dinner. However, his dad is always the first one up (he normally rises between 4:30 and 5:00 am!) and is ready to cook breakfast way before anyone else. So in the future, he will do the breakfast and we will do the dinners! As it ended up, we "donated" very little groceries on this trip because his dad just did it all!

Mike cooking

Ed cooking

Halee's favorite pass time is swinging. Gramma and Poppa brought a swing. The girls spent a lot of time swinging or pushing in the hammock.

One of the treats Poppa brought were fruit roll-ups. These particuluar ones had "tongue tattoos" on them. Here are some $$$ on Hannah's tongue.


Saturday morning Ed built this fort for the girls to play in. Then his dad joined in. It was a neat place for the girls to play in. They had a cash register, 2 firepits, and a bench inside.

We also went for a hike up to Pine Creek Falls. Hannah and Poppa were hiking partners the whole way.

Here's the rest of the crew. I was generally in the back.


This is what it looked like! Isn't God amazing???

Ed's parents


A good family photo in front of the falls!


That afternoon after we got back and about dinner time, it started to rain. Ed's dad had already started cooking dinner on the fire. So, he set up this umbrella over the fire so that it wouldn't go out and we could finish dinner. It worked pretty well and we had a good dinner of pork, potatoes, carrots, onions and zucchini all mixed together.

After dinner we had a special dessert. When I was a kid growing up my grandparents had these cooker things that we made pies with. You butter 2 pieces of white bread and put them in the cooker with a spoon full of cherry pie filling inside. Close the cooker and cook in fire. The bread toasts (like a grilled cheese) and you have a cherry pie. My mom had some of these cookers that they never used. After about 30 years, she decided to give them to us! We opened the packages up and read the "cookbook" inside. It was dated 1976! It had lots of good ideas in it. One of them is to use pizza dough and put pizza toppings inside. Another was to make cornbread. Another was to use pie dough and put stew inside. I think it would be good to put cornbread mix and stew in one! This morning, Ed fried an egg in it. It was a "perfect" egg because it was perfectly round and fit perfectly on an english muffin! So, I bet we will get lots of use out of these, now that they are broke in!

As always, we had a great time. So nice to just be in God's creation, away from everything, and just relax in the great outdoors! We didn't hurry to do anything. Now, back to the grind!

We (the girls and I) leave for Texas/New Mexico on Wednesday. So, this will be probably be the last blog until I get back, which will be the 21st. Can you believe summer is almost over? How time just flies when your having fun!

Silly Family

On Wednesday we met a few friends at the park in Belgrade. It also has this splash park. The girls had lots of fun, even though it wasn't extremely hot!

This is a picture of Ed that his mom took when we were visiting in June.

The girls are really into performing for me. Here is Halee's show.



And Hannah's show.

Now we are off to Pine Creek to camp for the long weekend. We are looking forward to it! Happy 4th!

Yellowstone Bible Camp

First, I'm sure that you want to see a picture of me in the kitchen. So, here you go. This is where the dishwashing occurs! Have to keep up on the dirty dishes so that you can dirty them again!

This is Darci, my assistant. This was her least favorite job of the week - chopping 18 pounds of chicken into bite size pieces. So the next time it was on the list, she found some help!

As stated in an earlier post, everything went well. The week wasn't very stressfull, just lots of work. However, it wasn't exhausting either because we weren't stressed! Don't get me wrong, both of us are having a hard time motivating this week and I did take a 2 hour nap yesterday, it was tiring, but we weren't so exhausted that we couldn't enjoy it. We did! I think there were only 2 meals that weren't ready on time (one was leftover day and we were busy cleaning the oven and didn't get them in on time and the other was roast beef night when we had lots to get carved!). The day started at 5:30 for me and 6:00 for Darci. Most days we ended around 9:00. However, we did take several breaks (after each meal so that the dishes could get done and in the evening we always listened to the lesson). We cooked for 80 people but 35 of those were under 14, so our recipe size was for 75. So, in the end, it was a good week and we are signed up to do it again next year!

For those of you who have never been to camp, this is the serving line.

Halee is carrying her tray to wherever she sits.

Do you want to know what the kids did all day? After breakfast, at 9:30, was Bible class. I can't remember the title of the week, but it had to do with God's wisdom. All the kids met together at the camp fire for the lesson and an experiment. Brian taught the lesson and did the experiement. Then for the 2nd session, they broke the kids up into 3 groups and did some activities to follow the lesson.

Afternoons are free time. We had the girls lay down and rest/nap for a while. When they weren't in class or resting, they were on the playground. Halee loves to swing and that's about all she did. She has pretty much learned how to pump and get herself going now. BUT anytime there was someone willing to give her a push ... she capitalized on it.

Hannah spent her time doing lots of playing with her friends. There is a playhouse on the playground that they "moved" into. Then the other kids were wrecking it, so they moved up the hill to this place that has some rock walls and made that their house. They swang, dug and did who knows what else! Here she is with Sterling and Sydney.

One afternoon, everyone (except the cooks) went to Pine Creek for a hike. Here are some pictures a friend took of them.

This is just a few of the kids that went. From left to right are Caleb and Ali (they are from Indiana), Hannah and Halee, and Riley and Kailen (Darci's kids).

Thursday is free day. We decided to go to Chico and hang out in the hot springs. A nice relaxing soak after all the long days in the kitchen. As we were walking to the car, this fawn came up to Ed and sniffed his hand! He was inches away!

Then we headed to Chico. Several other families joined us. This is Kailen and Sydney (from Utah) with Hannah.

As always, it was a great week! Just a great place to go and be away from the world in the beautiful mountains that God created with God's people!

We're home!

I just wanted to let everyone know we are home from camp. It was a great week. The cooking went well and I'm signed up to do it again next year. I have some pictures and such about the week that I will post, but right now I am going to bed! Gotta catch up from last week!

Lazy Week

Sorry no pictures again. I was going to get some taken this week and just never got around to it! I got a lot accomplished and had a pretty quiet week around the house. It was so nice and relaxing compared to my "normal" weeks! I finished staining the ceiling of the porch, made Hannah a pair of jammies (wanted to make 2, but my machine was not cooperating on the second pair and I gave up for now!), and gave the house a good cleaning. I was able to go to a friend's house and help her unpack one afternoon and then was able to watch her kids one morning so she could get some shopping done. We all slept in late and just were plain lazy some days. Oh, how nice.

Next week, on the other hand, won't be that way at all. We are leaving for Bible camp in the morning. This is the camp that I am the head cook for. I'm pretty nervous tonight, but know that once I get up there and get going, things will settle down. I'll let you know how things go when I get back.

So, ta ta for now!

Update

Sorry it has been so long since I've posted. I'll just give you a brief sinopsis of what we've been up to. No pictures. I haven't had a chance to take any!

Since the last time I wrote, we went to Great Falls for a Young Families Retreat for christians. It was a good time. The lessons were for parents to learn how to raise better teenagers. The kids participated in a VBS - Sonic City. We took our camper and stayed in an RV park. Basically all we do is sleep in it, but it is nice to have our "own" space!

On Tuesday morning Ed left for Denver for the rest of the week. He had some "training" to do and meet people in the company locations down there. There was also a retirement party for the president of the company.

Wednesday started VBS for us here. Well, actually it started on Sunday evening when we got home from Great Falls! A lot of preparation before it actually starts. Wednesday is when the kids came. The theme was Power Lab - Discovering the Miracles of Jesus. It was a huge success. We had approximately 70 kids and at least half of them were community kids (not friends of our kids - just kids who came)! We even had one family attend services yesterday.

Saturday we stayed at home (mostly - Ed made a few trips to Home Depot and I had to take Halee to the dr - read on) and got things done around the house. Ed finished building the gates for our fence. Now it is completely closed in. All that's left is putting a "decorative" cap on the top and staining it. He also dug up some grass by the driveway that we drive on when we pull the camper out and put rocks down. Then in the backyard (where he took the rocks from) he added some sprinklers and put some grass down. He also put sprinklers in the garden. Hannah played outside all day! She loves to be outside but likes someone around. So that worked out great. Halee played outside too (except the dr appt and nap). Halee woke up with lots of red spots all over her. I had no idea what they were so I just took her into the doctor. Hives. Who knows what caused them . . . but one dose of Zyrtec and they're gone. I gave the kitchen a good cleaning (2 hours worth) and stained the ceiling of the front porch (that never got done last summer). I also got my grocery order for camp complete (which I'm nervous about - if I missed something or didn't order enough of something, there's no grocery store to make a quick run too!). It was a productive weekend.

This week we don't have much going on. It is the first week in a long time! I have one appt on Tuesday morning. So, I'm going to finish givin my house a deep cleaning and finish the porch ceiling. We are also going to just relax! Saturday we leave for a week at camp, in which I'm the head cook. So it will be a busy, tiring, but fun week. So we need this week to gear up!

Ballet

Yesterday was Hannah's ballet show. The pictures didn't turn out all that great, but you get the idea!