Christmas In July 2008

I think we have started a new tradition! We went to our former seasonal campground for the first time this year and camped with my brother and his family, and my parents got a deluxe cottage for Saturday night. Chad came up with the idea of having a $5 gift exchange and draw names for "Christmas in July." I had Reese, Ben had Addy, Trenton had Amber, Tyler had maw maw and Gabi had uncle Chad. On the flip side...Reese had me, mom had Ben, Chad had Trenton, Addy had Tyler and Presley had Gabi. All set up for a fun time!

We were able to leave around 2 pm on Friday and the evening was nice. We basically just set up, went for a walk, let the girls swim a bit, play on the playground and enjoyed the campfire.

Saturday we got up bright and early to visit the bears. We were pleasantly surprised that Ranger Smith had also shown up for pictures with the bears. We decided to try and take a few pictures of all the kids together since we actually had all three of our kids this weekend!! Far and few between anymore. So we got some cute pics of the cousins and headed back to the camper. It was funny because Trenton actually was telling Amber about a garter snake that him and his buddy found in a spot we were walking through, when Amber said, "and there it is!" And right before us was a pretty long garter snake!! We were startled, of course, because Maizy was going after it and the girls were just about walking on top of it. We each grabbed a little one and Ben went for the snake itself to show it to the kids. He ended up getting it too close to Maizy and she got a little too curious and the snake took a snap at Maizy's nose. Startled her to death!! Needless to say, Ben got rid of the snake. Around this time, my parents showed up and unfortunately the weather decided to be uncooperative and it started raining. Pretty much most of the day, but we dealt with it the best we could. Tyler and Trenton invited some friends up for the day so they also showed up right after lunch time. They were able to swim in the lake, play some rock band and get in a game of volleyball before heading off back home.

For dinner we had our favorite meal...bbq chicken, Amber's yummy pasta salad, corn on the cob, mom's great fried potatoes and biscuits. We also arranged for Boo Boo and Yogi to come the campsite around dinner time to bring Addy and my dad a small gift for their birthdays. We knew Addy would absolutely love this and she did! It was certainly worth the money to get a little personal attention! We headed to my parents cottage for the gift exchange. My mom even brought a Christmas tree! Some great gift ideas for everyone and we had fun watching every body open their gifts. I got a cute tote bag, some notecards/envelopes and a gift card to Starbucks (my favorite), Ben got a Nascar stocking cap and his own box of zingers (his favorite), Trenton and Tyler both got a nice collared shirt and Gabi got some super cute HSM things including a notebook, folder and pencils!!! After having cake on the porch, we decided to have a fire. It stopped raining just in time to start a fire, have a little contest (between Tyler and Chad - who could eat the most pudgey pies - Tyler won this with 4 or 5) and it started raining again. BUMMER! Luckily, my parents got a super nice deluxe cottage with 2 bedrooms...one with a bed and one with four bunks. The boys brought rock band and they set it up there on the tv and were able to stay overnight with them so we weren't feeling so crowded and wet.

And this morning we woke to more wetness. It looked like the weather wasn't gonna get any better but we stuck it out and decided to go for a few more golf cart rides, slowly start cleaning up our campsites, went for a couple of walks, ate a "leftover" lunch and by the time we took the kids swimming, the warm sun came out. Our last stop, of course, had to be getting some ice cream on the way out. We were glad it was a half way decent ending (weather wise) to a fun filled weekend-and more importantly, we are so glad we could all be together this year (unlike last year with Trenton gone). We are definitely looking forward to making this an annual event!!! Enjoy pictures here.