weekend with friends!

We had such a great time camping this weekend! We certainly enjoyed the company of the many friends who joined us. Several camped Friday and Saturday night, some just Friday, while some showed up just for paintball on Saturday. In order to take the short way to the property, we have to drive through a creek, which has been no problem for those of us that have been going for years! Well, the hard part this year isn't the creek but the hill after it! It's never been an issue before but this time the hill is more narrow and much softer! The Goodsell's van just wouldn't make it up the hill. Lisa was driving so she stopped it right away, partway up the hill. I'm not sure what possessed John but he decided to back it into the creek a bit and try to go up the hill again. You guessed it! Now it was stuck IN the creek. We had the nice accompaniment of the bubbling exhaust to keep us entertained. It took about an hour to get them pulled out. We used our truck and snapped the rope several times. Finally Courtney and I went to the cabin and brought back several pieces of flat wood to put under the tires. Phil then had the ingenious idea of using the jack to lift each side of the van up and wedge the wood underneath. After two or three times of that method the van was finally free! The saving grace in all the heat of that day was the creek because that's where all the kids ended up while the adults worked at getting the thing out! I could kick myself for not thinking about taking photos during this lovely episode! Oh well.

It was fun to have Kirk again. He wasn't able to come at all last year and he, along with his oldest daughter, son and his various friends, have always provided us with a lot of laughs around the campfire! One poor boy hasn't hit puberty yet, at the age of 13, and John took full advantage of making fun of his high pitch voice. He was such a good sport!

All the kids were so great and boy were there a lot of them. They all got along so well. Some of my favorite moments were of watching Madison discover things and I just loved looking over at Isaac and Benjamin sitting on the side of the cliff, shirts off, playing with their action figures, in their own little world!

Cute little Madison got along great with Flower and was just mesmerized with Flower's black hair. While Flower was trying to eat her dinner, Madison just kept touching her hair. It was so sweet!

At the end of the night, John built a fire only he could be proud of since it was scorching the hell out of the rest of us! All you can do with him around is shake your head!

We did have a really great night around the campfire Saturday night, in part thanks to John, so I guess he's good for something! ;) It's been awhile since I've laughed hard enough to need my inhaler! So much fun!

Sunday as we were packing up camp, Kirk and his gang were the only ones left with us. Flower just loved Grandpa Kirk! She had so much fun doing her morning exercises with him. She also enjoyed chasing after the ball he'd throw so she could hear the sound affects he was making to her every footstep. She also liked playing in the drivers seat of his car. She loved the fact that she had an audience that was very amused by her every move! What a ham!







Thanks everyone who made this weekend so fantastic!