When did time decide to speed up on me?

So I had to have a good cry this morning while I wrote this. I don't know what I'm more upset about, the fact that my little sister is old enough to be graduating, or the fact that I'm old enough for her to be graduating. Hey, wasn't I just in high school a couple of years ago? That's a big no, more like ten years ago to be exact. Since we're ten years apart in age, I've always felt very protective of her and kind of like I had to be a second mom.




























That wasn't always the best tactic I'm sure, and most likely she's sick of everyone giving her tons of unsolicited advice, and being the baby of the family she's had to listen to the whole family telling her what to do her whole life. Maybe that's why she turned out so well though? HA.













Over the weekend, we were just laughing about all of the accidents and mishaps Tamra has had growing up. Accidents from the trampoline alone could make a long list. It's a miracle she never broke a bone or seriously injured herself. She had what we used to call the "explosive" syndrome, where she would just come running, stumbling, and crashing into a room.











Funny, I think Kendle inherited that same trait.

She was a fun kid and grew up playing sports and was always very involved with academics and school responsibilities. Tam is the type of person that would stress out about getting an A-, she was always striving to be the best and stay at the top of her class. She's never been afraid to walk to the beat of her own drum and she is an original person not afraid to branch out and do something or wear something different. People really admire that about her. It's been an asset to her through the years as I've watched her friends go down wrong paths, and their clothing becoming more and more questionable. She's been a pillar of light at that high school and for everyone around her. Her teachers, church leaders, coaches, friends and friends parents respect and enjoy her. If there was ever an activity in question, most of Tam's friends' parents would call my mom to see if she was letting Tam go before they made their decision. That to me says a lot.


















Recently she had a pretty low moment where she was the last person up to bat in their state playoff game, and she struck out. She was so disappointed in herself and was so upset. She felt like she let her team down when they needed her the most. It was hard for me to sit back and let her have her moment of being sad, but I know that life dishes up some pretty mean disappointments at times and part of growing up is learning how to deal with them. This was one of her times and I knew she'd come out of it OK. In true Tamra fashion she stopped beating herself up about it and even managed to laugh about it a little. Life is hard sometimes, and everything doesn't always come our way, but we dust ourselves off and try to learn something from our mistakes and failures.

With her successes and achievements, it would be easy for people around her to be intimidated or envious but she is so humble and down to earth and will be the first one to compliment someone else for what they've done. Here are some highlights of her senior year:

-1st team all-league for Volleyball

-Homecoming princess

-1st team all-league for Softball

-Prom Queen

-National Honor Society President

-Presidential Academic Achievement Award

This is a girl who could have been studying Nuclear Physics or pre-med in college, (man, I wanted a doctor in the family) but has chosen to follow her true desire of art and photography. Having a photographer in the family has it's *perks* too.













I know she will do great things in her life and be successful at whatever she chooses. And even though she refused to change any of my kids dirty diapers for me, I still love her so much and will miss her being gone next year. I hope she still feels like she needs little old me and doesn't forget to drop us a line once in a while, even when she's having fun and doing the college thing. I know that little town is too small for her and she's dying to leave, but I hope she enjoyes her graduation this weekend and her last summer at home. We are so proud of you Tam, and we will always be there for you through your ups, downs and whatever.


*One last request, Father Time please slow the heck down.*


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Camping Day 2

My last post I left off with our family jumping in our car to escape the rain and driving down to Dayton. This was at about 6:30 in the morning. I cranked up the heat so we could dry our soggy clothes, and we headed back to town. When we got back to Dayton we went to a little grocery store, picked up some donuts and some juice and tried to find out what the weather was supposed to do. The rain was supposed to taper off and the rest of the day was predicted to be nice, with some thunder showers later in the evening. We decided since we were already out and about that we'd drive up to Tucannon and check out the place we were going to go fishing. Riley said it was really pretty, so I thought why not?

It took about half an hour to get there, and Riley had a "shortcut" that took us down a long and winding hill right by a big wind farm. It was crazy to be that close to those windmills, especially in such a beautiful place. We made it back on level ground and stopped at the "Last Resort" RV park to ask where the best fishing was for the day. They gave us the name of the lakes and then we drove a little farther down the road where there were places you could pull over and park and cross the road to the lakes. So fishing in our pajamas didn't sound like too bad of an idea, until we drive by and see tons and tons of people already out by the lake. Plus, I guess I was expecting there to be more room for me to corral Morgan so that he wouldn't go falling in the lake. No such luck. I do not advise taking an almost 1 year old fishing. Unless you have one of those back pack, thing-a-mi-jigs and your kids really like riding around in them. So we decided to can the fishing for the moment, and maybe we'd come back a little later in the day.

By this time it was turning into a beautiful day and the sun was shining and glinting off the water. That whole area is so beautiful and GREEN. There are some really pretty farms surrounding the roads. We got back to Teancum Timbers and inspected the damage from the rain at our campsite. Things were already starting to dry and we built a fire to dry the chairs and wet shoes and things around. Riley pulled the rain tarp off of our tent and shook the water off and we mopped up some of the puddles that had leaked through the zipper holes in the tent. We decided that we would just dry things out, spend the day there and then pack up that evening and head home instead of risking getting rained on another night.

After tidying things up a bit, we decided to take some showers and change clothes since it was starting to get hot. What a difference a shower can make! I felt like a new woman. Riley told me beforehand that I looked pretty bedraggled. Uh, yeah. We got no sleep, I slept on a bouncy air mattress, most of our stuff was soaking wet, and I hadn't looked in a mirror for the last 18 hours. What did he expect me to look like, Cindy Crawford?! Oh, those husbands. I also made a yummy late breakfast of breakfast burritos on our camp stove and that really hit the spot. Yummy food always lifts people's spirits. What is it about outdoor cooking that makes everything taste better?

Riley took Kendle fishing for a bit, but the water was running too fast and too high from all of the rain so they didn't have much luck. Kendle was pretty discouraged because she really wanted to cook up some fish, (this coming from the pickiest eater on the planet) but she still enjoyed the fishing part. I was lounging in my almost dry camp chair and reading a good book in the sunshine while Morgan played happily in his play pen. It was very relaxing and peaceful. The sounds of birds chirping and the water flowing by was exactly what I needed. After Riley and Kendle got back, Riley started packing some things up in our tent, when who should we see driving up the camp trail in a big white truck? MY PARENTS!

I had mentioned to them earlier in the week that they should drive up for a day and hang out. They didn't think they would be able to because they were pretty busy and had a lot of stuff to do to get ready for my sisters graduation this coming weekend. But they said when they found out about the big rain storms going on in our camping area, and couldn't reach us on our cell phones they got pretty worried and thought that they'd better drive up and make sure we were alright and help us pack stuff up. That was one of the biggest surprises in my life and one of the best. The kids were so excited to see them and it was fun to have them there. My mom took Kendle on a couple of little hikes, and we ate lunch and they helped us pack stuff up and haul some gear back. And also being the awesome grandparents that they are, they invited Kendle to come back and stay with them overnight. I cannot express how great my parents are.

Our ride home was quiet and we were all so tired we couldn't wait to be home and sleep in our own beds. One nice thing was that as soon as we got home we unpacked the car, and I started throwing some laundry in. The unloading went really fast and we had a free car wash to use the next day to take care of our mud caked, pine needle infested travel mobile. The funny thing was, as soon as we got back to Pasco it started raining. Was it following us?

So was it the camping trip of our dreams? Not quite, but we still managed to have a lot of fun, we're stocked up on camping gear for the rest of our lives, and we'll have memories to laugh about for years to come.

Camping Day 1

We had a wild camping extravaganza this weekend.

We were packed to the gills with every possible camping item we own, and I had to take the opportunity to take this picture before we pulled out of the driveway Saturday afternoon. It was too funny to pass up. Can you spot the kids?

This is what we had packed into our Durango:

-1 eight man tent

-1 10x10 canopy

-3 sleeping bags

-2 air mattresses

-3 blankets

-3 pillows

-1 play pen

-2 tarps

- 2 large coolers

- 1 storage container of food

-1 box of cooking utensils and supplies

-1 propane camp stove

-1 small charcoal grill

- 3 fishing poles and tackle box

- 2 lanterns

- 1 bag of toys

-2 rolls of firewood

- 1 ginormous sport bag of our clothes, shoes, etc...

- 1 diaper bag

-1 Dora the Explorer backpack

-4 coats

-3 chairs

-1 small folding camp table

Riley did an excellent job of packing it all in and we were afraid if we all breathed at the same time the doors would burst open. It took us a little over an hour to reach Teancum Timbers and it was an enjoyable, quiet drive. It was a gorgeous day, and we were pleasantly surprised to find upon our arrival that we were the only people camping there. (I guess we were the only heathens who were camping there on a Saturday night.) We drove around for a little while to find the perfect camp spot, and had to fore go our number one pick because of ants. Not just a few ants, but a mountain of them. So we ended up picking Camp 17 which proved ideal until we discovered there were numerous thorny branches on the ground from one of the trees, but we decided to stay there anyways and Riley was the only one who kept encountering them for some reason. (little did we know those would come back to haunt us)

It didn't take too long for us to unpack our gear and start setting things up. Our tent is quite roomy and we fit a queen air mattress, a twin air mattress and Morgan's playpen inside, along with enough room for our bags and such; pretty comfortable. The kids had fun playing in the tent for a while, until we discovered that a thorn had pierced the bottom of the tent and punctured the queen mattress. I forgot to mention that it is lucky we stayed close to the bathroom area so that Riley could make a couple of trips back and forth to plug in the electric air pump to air up the mattresses. We patched the hole, aired it up some more and it held up nicely. After we had everything unpacked and situated, we relaxed for a bit and enjoyed the beautiful day. I brought Kendle some water color paints and she enjoyed that, and Morgan enjoyed the fresh air from the comfort of his play pen. Thank goodness we brought that thing, it was seriously a life saver amidst the dirt, rocks, branches, bark, and bugs.

Here's what our camp spot looked like:

For dinner we roasted hot dogs, and then made some S'mores before bedtime. We were all pretty tuckered out so we decided to turn in fairly early. The plan was to wake up the next morning and drive a little ways for some fishing. Unbelievably, we were all in bed and covered up by 8:45 or so. The Morgster didn't think it was too cool that he was sleeping in a play pen, while everyone else lounged on comfy air mattresses and he put up quite a fight. We finally let him out to roam around the tent for a bit and he finally started to get a little tired out and lay back down in his bed. Kendle fell asleep pretty quick and man that girl can sleep hard when she passes out like that. I just was starting to doze off when it started to rain. At first it was just a light pleasant little patter. Riley and I noted that we luckily had the rain covering on top of the tent. About an hour later the rain was pouring down and hammering the top of the tent so hard it made it impossible to sleep. I reached for my cell phone to see the time, thinking it must be almost morning. Uh, no such luck. A blurry 2:30 am stared back at me. An hour later Riley and I were still wide awake and I was silently praying that we would not be flooded and float away in our tent. The rain would just not let up and kept coming down harder and harder. I finally fell asleep somewhere around 4:30 and was having a wonderful dream about camping when Morgan's crying jolted me awake. The first thing I noticed was that the rain had let up a bit. It should stop soon I remember thinking. Wrong. The storm continued and finally around 6:00 we decided to get up and peek outside and make a run for the bathrooms. By this time it was just a slight drizzle, but everything outside was soaking wet and our chairs had puddles in them.

Hmmm, what to do. We couldn't make a fire, sit in our chairs, or cook breakfast. So I went and grabbed the umbrella out of the car, we made a quick run to the bathrooms and then we hopped back into the car in our pajamas and decided to make a drive back to Dayton to see what we could find out about the weather and find out if we could get some cell phone service.

Tomorrow I'll write more about our rain soaked day 2 of camping.

The Great Outdoors

Tomorrow we will pack up and head out to enjoy a weekend of camping. It's amazing how much "stuff" we "need" to take with us. I am really looking forward to getting away from the TV, computer, cell phone reception, neighbor kids, Sports Center, and the other day to day things that seem to whittle away at our time. We're planning some fishing (I bought my first fishing license), hiking, camp cooking, and just good old family togetherness. I'm not too sure how doing these activities with an almost 1 year old will turn out, but it's bound to be interesting. Especially now that Morgan thinks he's Mr. Independent and walks/runs everywhere. Kendle can't wait and I'm sure she's been dreaming of S'mores for the last few nights. Now, I like to be out in the fresh air and sleep in a tent and cook around the campfire and all that jazz, but this girl likes to be clean when she's camping. I'm glad we're staying somewhere where there are showers and bathrooms. I had my fill of enough yucky outhouses at Girls Camp growing up to last me a lifetime.

Here's a recipe I'm going to try out while we're there:


Peach Cobbler in a Can:

Remove the entire paper label from a can of sliced peaches in syrup (I'm going to use a can of peach pie filling, you could do this with any pie filling or fruit probably). Open the can and pour the syrup out into a cup. Sprinkle several tablespoons of dry Yellow Cake Mix onto the peaches in the can. Pour just a little of the syrup back over the peaches and dry cake mix. Add a dab of butter on top. Replace the lid on the can and then place the can onto a grate over a hot campfire. Let the cobbler cook for about 10 to 15 minutes, until the crust is crumbly and the peaches are bubbly. You can eat the cobbler out of the can with a spoon or pour onto a plate to share!

I'll share how that turns out. Next post will hopefully be on Tuesday with lots to share about our weekend.