July is for: Picnics and Camping!

Well once again, I haven't updated in a while. We are busy-busy bees around here. Last weekend was the fourth of July holiday and we went up to my uncle Sam's house for a family picnic. It was very hot that day (and all last week) so Chase, Joanna and I were able to cool off in the pool after lunch. Joanna has recently fallen in love with the water and "swimming", she makes her mommy very nervous because she has no fear and thinks she can actually swim. I got her and Chase these life jacket swim suits that help me feel not so nervous and Chase can practically swim in his.

I didn't have to work too much last week, which I appreciated, but it was so hot that I just tried to stay inside as much as possible. Ricky had off of work on Monday as well so he got some more work done on his current project, it's really coming along now. His friend came over and built that wall back up but there is still that giant hole in the patio which I'm hoping will get filled in soon.

On Wednesday, one of the days that it got over 100degrees I found a dead cat in the hole... so gross. Apparently it just fell in there and died of heat.

I didn't get a chance to take the kids swimming at all last week, thankfully it has cooled down a little bit, and we got rain! Although I think my plants are beyond help by this point, our garden is doing OK since Ricky had set up a sprinkler and we watered it a few times last week. It's time to go out and weed again though :P

Friday we were going to leave for our camping/Knoeble's trip but Ricky didn't end up getting home from work until around 4:00pm so we decided to leave early Saturday morning. Dominic came with us on this trip so he spent the night at our house and we all got up bright and early and hit the road. When we woke up it was pouring down rain and we kind of just looked at each other like, "uhh, we're going camping?" As we drove up though it started clearing and we eventually saw blue skies and sunshine and I was thankful that we hadn't been camping that night and gotten soaked. Saturday ended up being very nice and we had such a blast at Knoeble's. We went to World's End State Park first and set up our camp.

[kids, tired of waiting and ready to go to the amusement park]

We got to Knoeble's around 1:30pm and went straight to the pavilion where we were meeting Ricky's work for lunch. Ate around 2:00 and then were let loose on the park. Ricky's work provided us with as many tickets as we could possibly ask for which covered rides, food, drinks, games and everything. We were hoping they would also cover the gas for the way home, but alas we had to pay for that :)

The kids had such a fun time riding all the rides though. Here we are all waiting for the little "ole' smokey" train to take us on a ride...

(isn't she such a doll-baby?!)

She just loved all the rides and wanted to go on all of them over and over again.

Doesn't Ricky look like he was having fun? haha! Actually he had a good time too but it's hard to get a picture of him smiling too, such a tough guy, ya know :)

We all went on the giant Ferris wheel which had a beautiful view from the top. Dominic was only slightly nervous, and we were able to spot the log flume ride from the top, which Ricky went on with the boys as our last ride of the day. I was exhausted at the end and wanted to crawl right into my sleeping bag when we got back but unfortunately Joanna was overly tired and didn't go to sleep until around 10:00pm, and put up quite a fuss about it too, I'm surprised no one complained about it.
Everyone slept well then though and it got nice and cool over night so it was very comfortable sleeping. Sunday morning was kind of chilly and so we were teasing Dominic about making him swim in the stream which is always pretty frigid. But he was determined to go swimming and actually jumped right in to our surprise.

(another happy picture of Ricky)

We hadn't brought any toys for the kids but they didn't need any to occupy themselves. Here's Joanna playing with their favorite "toys", the rocks on our campground.

Me and my tough guy who is so apathetic about camping with his family ;)

We also walked to the really nice park that they have there to let the kids play, and Dominic dry off from his swim

Hmm, is that a smile? Well if it wasn't I bet he was grinning from ear to ear on the swings:

(hee hee)

World's end state park is close to the little town of Forksville, pa which you have to drive through a covered bridge to get to. This is the 3rd time, or so, that we've camped there and I've finally gotten a picture of the covered bridge.

This little country store is about the only thing in the town of Forksville besides a little church, dilapidated fire station, and an ATM sized bank.

There's a little sign above the doorway of this store that says, "Relax, you're in Forksville." and we always try and obey that sign while we are here.

Joanna spent some time trying to perfect her bear hugs:

We also like stopping in at the ranger station which has lots of "animals" for the kids to look at. This time I saw a sign that said to check out their backyard garden so we went around and looked at all of the interesting perennials that they had.

I wish I could have had time to read all the name plaques and find out what everything was.

We got home around 4:00 in the afternoon and were all just exhausted. I was able to lay down for a little bit and then got ready to go to our church's VBS that is going on this week. The kids had so much fun singing songs, listening to stories and making crafts (or craps as Chase calls them). They are excited to go back again tonight... I'm helping out with one of the classes too and it is fun.

Pregnancy-wise I just entered my 7th month and 3rd trimester, so 13 weeks till my estimated due date. I'm still feeling pretty good most of the time, but am definitely looking forward to cooler weather

The fetus weighs almost 2 pounds now and is about 14.5 inches long.
Baby now weighs about 875 grams and is 36.5 cm in length.
The head is over 2.5 inches (7cm) in diameter.
Your baby's hearing continues to develop.
The eyes can blink, open and close.

I have my monthly appointment on Wednesday and they'll be doing the every so lovely glucose screen and seeing how many millions of pounds I've gained ;P