Happy Birthday, Paul!

Congratulations to Paul for reaching the coveted milestone of all children. Yes, he's finally able to play with marbles, eat peanuts, and build with small legos. He's been doing that already? Well, at least he can do it lawsuit-free now.

Happy Birthday to Paul! May you always enjoy strawberry cake!!

Summer in Ohio

The beginning of June meant the final days of school, full of parties and good-byes. Since then we've enjoyed a week of band camp, including concert, lots of swimming, cookie/cobbler making, and home-grown peas.

I'm grateful to have everyone home for the summer. And I think they all agreed with that statement the first week they were home...then the chores and extra-curricular activities began! In my defense, we have spent a lot of time at the YMCA pool. :)

I just wanted to share a few things. Last Friday, everyone was doing their house cleaning jobs. It was Amy's turn to mop the floor. She was enjoying helping and stated that when she was a mom, she'd always mop the floor so that it could be clean. Not sure if she's saying I do a bad job...or she just really had fun. We'll go with the latter.

Today James was working on the Outdoorsman activity badge for cubs. He wants to know if he can sleep outside tonight under the shelter he built. I say sure! It should be able to withstand the nightly thunderstorms we keep getting.


Hope you are all having a wonderful summer! Feel free to join James tonight to catch some fireflies.

Ohiopyle, PA

Our new van was inducted into the Nielson way of life very quickly. In its first week of adoption, it received a hitch and a boat-load of camping gear and kids. (We wish it were a literal boat-load, but in this event it was not a real boat. We are excited, however, to try out our new canoe later this summer.)

After months of planning between families, we started our extended Nielson family vacation with a trip to the airport picking up Andrea. She didn't realize she'd have to finish all our packing before we could actually start driving the next day. She's such a good sport. :)

Pennsylvania is not as close as it looks. I guess I was looking at a map of North America. After about 6 hours of towing, including several bathroom stops (did I mention we just potty-trained?), we arrived at Ohiopyle Stake Park in southern PA, just seconds behind Lauren, Ryan, & Annie. Incredibly, we pulled off the surprise of Andrea joining us. While we waited for the fun to begin (Jonathan, Quinn, & Benjamin), we got everything unpacked, tents & tarps up, kitchen assembled, and found the bathrooms.


The rest of our weekend was filled with swings, Cucumber Falls, stars, cousins playing, treasure hunts, slack line attempts, a little sleep, a Sunday sacrament meeting, sling shots, hammock lounges (and/or pirate conquests), Maggie learning to ride a two-wheeler, frequent visits by the park ranger (to the camp next to us), constant attempts to play cards, and food, food food!

I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story. I know it looks like a long story, but it really went very quickly.We had a fabulous time with our family and are so grateful they took the time to play with us! Thanks to all for helping put this together. Definitely a tradition worth keeping around for a few more generations!

"May" I Go?

May seemed like an exciting dash for a huge rainbow-colored finish line, which literally was our long awaited camping trip with family:

• flowers sprouting up everywhere

• kids finishing up another school year--Maggie liked to remind us just how many days were left (several times a day)
  

• teacher appreciation day, including beautiful bouquets of flowers (so glad I got to volunteer in Maggie's class that day)

• 6th grade Olympic Day, Scot graciously gave up his slot for the 5X200 relay, but got in the Top Ten for Boys Long Jump

• the beginning of orientation into middle school for Scot

• the finish of ballet & preschool; this is our final preschool party at the park:

• Father & Sons campout--rain, again!

• Summit Success Night--Brian got to see all the achievements in each classroom
  

• potty training--let's just say that the phrase "way to go!" has taken on a whole new meaning

• quick trip for Brian & Sara to Michigan for our new van (does that count as a date?); everyone is still very excited!
  

• Memorial Day family camping in Ohiopyle, PA--see details in next post
  

Wow, looking back I realize just how crazy May was! We were able to do a lot, and I loved seeing for all the kids reaching their own milestones.

April Back Track

April was full of celebrations/events, including General Conference, Easter, Scot's first temple trip, Stake Relief Society conference for Sara, a field trip for Maggie, Amy's birthday, and camping with the Whitney's.

A few pictures highlighting Amy's beginning adventure into "The Big Five":




Amy had such a fun 5th birthday party, celebrating with friends. We made butterfly kites, played games, and ate strawberries & cream cupcakes.



A few highlight from out camp-out at East Lake. These were taken the night before the rain hit (is it possible to camp without rain in Ohio?):

Buddy Boy

I've been saving up a few choice activities to post, but this couldn't wait.

Amy & Paul were playing "Halloween" today. Don't ask what is involved--mostly I have no idea. Obviously they were dressing up, and I believe dried apples were going to be candy.

What really caught my ear was the phrase "buddy boy."

Paul was adamantly informing Amy that he was not buddy boy, but a king. Of course he is--can't you see his three tier crown? And don't miss the flowing sweatshirt veil under Amy's tiara.

I love that these two can play all day long together!

April Backpacking

So we went backpacking at the last minute.  Ok, last minute is a little exaggerated.  We were planning to go later in the month. But that had a schedule conflict.  And it was spring break. And the weather was GREAT. And we made the decision Wednesday night to go on Friday night.  Then I got out of work 2 hours early.  It all just fit.

We went to a local lake and packed in to an established campsite.  Lower impact if we reuse the same area.  This one has some shelters built in and a pit latrine (high times in the back country).   We decided not to put up a tent, and instead used a shelter built by an Eagle Scout from Troop 222.  They meet in our church building too.  We also met a great family in the campsite- well, we met the dad & 3 oldest kids.  Ages matched up with ours, among several other coincidences.  Fortunately, their camera had a flash card, so we got some pics from them.  What did we do before email?

Here we are just heading out.  Actually this sign is for the trail, if we take the long way.  We did not want to do that.

In the campsite with new friends.  Petzl would be proud.

Here is the shelter in the morning.

And a close up of Sara & Paul- Sara asked me to take this one, I assume because she wanted it posted.  What a good husband I am.

Here are all the kids before heading out.  (We still had a little packing to do).

And just us-- because Sara said I had to be in one of the pictures too.

All in all it was a perfect first trip.  More to come.