Back to Life, Back to reality...

Well we made it home safely from our vacation at Ricketts Glen State Park, PA. The weather was beautiful the whole time we were there. I drove up with the kids on Wednesday and got there a little after 5:00pm. It took me a while to get there because I stopped at Ricky's job to say goodbye and then I had to stop at Kmart to get more underwear for Chase and stop for lunch, etc, etc. I finally did get there though and my mom and dad were already there (they had been there since Sunday) and we ate dinner together and then they helped me unload all my stuff into our cabin. I actually forgot to take pictures of the cabin but it was really nice. We had a 2 bedroom one with a nice little living room and kitchen and bathroom. All the luxuries of home.

Thursday morning I spent the morning relaxing and reading my book (Feminine Appeal). Chase played and hung out with Joanna.

My parents had taken the morning to drive down to pick up Christy's 3 oldest (Grace, Aiden and Naomi). Christy and Christian and the other two kids weren't able to make it but mom and dad still wanted the kids to be able to come. They got back around 1:00pm. I had to check in at the Ranger office so I decided to walk the mile and a half there with Chase walking most of the way and Joanna in the Ergo. I had finally got Chase to sit in the stroller when we saw a bear go across the road! It was a pretty small one but was about 30-40 yards away. Chase got a better view of it than I did (I thought maybe it could have been a big shiny black dog) and said "bear" right away. It made me a little nervous to walk the rest of the way to the ranger station and then all the way back to the cabin with no protection. The lady at the station said the bears are "really friendly" though (haha). When My parents got back we went on a little hike to see some of the waterfalls with all the kids. It took us an hour to walk 3/4 of a mile! It was fun though.

Chase was so excited to be with his cousins and kept saying ,"come on, guys. Come on" and repeating everything everyone was saying.

everyone had to get hiking sticks.

Thursday evening we all ate BBQ chicken pizza together. Yum! Also that evening I saw Ricky's truck key in the passenger side of my car. That was interesting because I had the spare set in my purse. Oops. No one got cell phone reception at the cabins so I had to drive 20 minutes to the town of Benton and try and call Him but he didn't answer. The next morning I drove out to town again and called him a little after 8:00am and he said he had borrowed Chad's truck and was on his way! Yeah! I was so worried that he was just not going to come. My dad and I went on a bike ride in the morning on Friday. That was fun but my legs were tired after going only 4 miles. I hadn't been on a bike for a long time. My dad did a lot of biking this weekend with the kids. They always wanted to go for a ride. I think he was pretty worn out at the end of it all.

Friday afternoon we went to the little beach for a little bit and the kids waded in the water.

After dinner we went out to a little go-cart track about 20 minutes away. It took some doing to figure out who was going to go with who and but everyone got a turn (except for Joanna) and it was a lot of fun.

Ricky got to go twice with Chase and they were both grinning from ear to ear the whole time. Chase was still talking about it this morning when he woke up.

Saturday we went for another hike in the morning. This one was a little more difficult than the other days and we had to be careful and go slow with the kids but it was such a nice day for it and very pretty. I was surprised how many people were there.

This was the best picture we could get of our family because Chase was being weird and didn't want his picture taken.

This one actually turned out really good but it's a little crooked because I took it on a self-timer resting on a rock.

In the afternoon Aiden fell off his bike and got a vicious bump on the head. The poor guy. It looked a lot better the next morning though.

Ricky had decided that we should have a campfire and smores so he got all the supplies and we all did that.

I had dared Grace to eat as many smores as she is old (7) and she said that would be no problem, that she could eat a million. I think she only ate one :)

We all had so much fun though. Ricky really liked it up in the mountains. We are thinking about going back up for spring gobbler hunting. Ricky and I got to go on a few bike rides together too which was really nice. Chase sat in the trailer on the back of Ricky's bike. Chase did really good and didn't have an accident the whole time we were away! What a big boy. He was even napping in his underwear. On the way home I had to stop 3-4 times but I made really good time anyway and was home only 20 minutes after Ricky got there. Chase peed in a couple parking lots on the way home:) I think he was really excited to be home because for some reason he had 4 accidents yesterday afternoon and evening. It's nice to be home but I have a lot of things I need to do today now. Oh, look what we found!