Dancing all night

On my mother's side of the family there are 43 first cousins. My youngest cousin got married last night. I was excited to go to the wedding because I have great childhood memories of dancing all night with my cousins. We would go the weddings as my older cousins got married. Last night I got to take my boys to the wedding and the dance. They don't know their second cousins very well, but they still had a great time.

The cousins in attendance.

(The groom is the one at the end)

Liam's haircut

Before

After

We went camping!

If you know us, you know that we are not outdoors people generally. We did enough of that in the military. However, as the boys get older we have decided that we need to get them out more. So we took the kids camping this past weekend and we had a great time.

We went to a state park along the Mississippi River. It was nice and out of the way and it was a quiet campground until we got there. We went with another family because they are experienced campers. They taught us a lot, but more importantly the kids had a great time. They played football, soccer, rode bikes, sat by the fire, played card games, all the usual stuff. We even took a hike. The only 2 things that were bad actually had up sides. It rained all night, but it started at 10pm and ended when we woke up. Thanks mother nature. The toilet in the area was an outhouse, but it was clean and the boys didn't have to flush. (It's hard to get them to remember to flush at home:)

Liam with his "walking" stick. It became firewood later when he wasn't looking.
Hanging out at the camp fire.

Lance enjoying S'mores

We went for a small hike on Sunday before we left. The campground is up about 500 ft. on the bluffs of the river. We chose a path that took us down to the water and then we had to come back up. It was a tough hike for kids and inexperienced (unprepared) hikers. It was only about 3 miles but it was mostly up and down the bluff. Everyone did a great job hiking, no one complained and it was getting hot near the end. The 3 year did have a small meltdown close to the top, but she did great!

The bottom of the trail was so worth it, but we still had to go back up.

Ren Fest

Grandma came to visit and we took her to the Renaissance Festival. Lance wanted to

dress up this year, that came out of nowhere. He wore part of his pirate costume from last Halloween. Liam didn't have any special outfits to wear, so he wore the t-shirt we got him a few years ago that says "Dragon Bait". I think he got more reactions from his t-shirt than Lance did dressing up.

We did the same old things. The boys had to pet the snakes for hours. The boys loved the snakes so much that Grandma bought them each a stuffed animal snake for a gift.

We ate a lot. We watched some shows. We ate more. We shopped.

Liam was called up on stage because they needed to feed the dragon in the show. It was in the kid's part, so not that many people were there to watch, but he was really nervous still.

We stayed 9 hours and had a great day. We were very tired and dirty when we got home.