Grandkids Camp

About a year ago we went to a family reunion at Sally's sister's cabin in the Uintahs. Judy told us about a camp they do every other summer for their grand kids over eight. Sally thought it was a great idea (we concurred). As soon as Jeff heard his mom consider it he started pushing for it, and we both pushed for lowering the age to seven. There is a gap between Gage and the next youngest grand kid of three years, so Gage would be the only kid not invited who would know what was going on (and oh, yeah, the only one of my kids left at home.) Persistence, whining and guilt, mixed with massive amounts of love and compassion paid off, and all of my kids got a golden ticket to grand kids camp.

Aunt Tiff went so that Madison could go (no way was that age getting lowered to 2, but if the momma came, the kid could come!) I am glad she did, because I stole all of these pictures from her Facebook!

They spent some wonderful time with their grandparents and cousins. They played hiked splashed in streams, and did some testimony building activities. I think they all had a wonderful time (even grandpa).

Here are the kids enjoying nature. Gage might be enjoying it a little too much!

It will be a sad day for these girls if Grandpa ever decides they are too big to sit on his lap.

Technically, Gage was only six when grandkid camp started, but he was seven when it ended!!

I only hope I have the whining power to make it an annual camp instead of ever other year.

Children are an heritage to the Lord...

Gage's Birthday

Birthday season was filled with lots of indecisiveness and lack of planning on my part (not really different for me, but the fog made it hard to push through.)

The previous year for Gage's birthday we had rented out a neighbor's backyard pool. Those sweet neighbors offered it to us again for his birthday this year. That made it easy. They have BBQ stuff on site, so a quick trip to Costco for some burgers and a few texts to friends and families was all that we needed to do.

This turns in to a bring your whole family party, so I planned for 75ish people. We had right around that number come. Not everyone swims. There is a lot of visiting and catching up among the old people (like me). But the kids have a great time.

They barely pause for eating and they swim until it is so dark we have to turn the dogs loose on them. (Literally, we turn the dogs loose on them. When the last few stragglers won't get out on the pool, we let out the neighbor's labs who love to swim. It scares the crap out of the kids and they are out in seconds.)

Good times!!

Also, we threw in celebrating my nephew, Marcus, at the same time.