A few weeks ago, in mid-September, was our Sturgeon family camp-out. It was a week long vacation. Grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins (Abigail & Olivia), Nanny & Papa were all there. Of course, Justin, the boys were all there as well. We went to Lake Wallowa. The kids did lots of swimming, playing in the sand (Aunt Emily helped them build a giant castle), finding bugs, playing in the dirt. I think Jarod & Micah had the most fun, playing with the Hulk hands that Nanny & Papa brought for them. A couple trips were made into the little near-by town. At night we had devotionals & singing. Joshua played guitar. He lead us, during the days, in some very rousing games of croquet. I discovered I stink at croquet, but it was still fun.
I also discovered Titus has.........um........issues. Whenever we would walk down to the lake, he would have to stop every two minutes, take off his shoes, brush off the bottoms of his feet, shake out his shoes, put them back on. Two minutes later.........same thing. When we would (FINALLY) get to the lake, I would try to set him down in the wet sand & shallow water. He would have NONE of that! I figured out that he was happier, sitting on his little camp chair with a DRY towel under his feet. If anyone moved that towel.........BIG trouble!!! Most of my two year olds have been a little nuerotic at times as they figure out what they like & don't like. However..........this is a little rediculous.
Justin did some fishing in the lake. He caught his ear at one point (see picture). I don't think he caught anything else there. However, the river was full of old salmon. Justin & the boys caught a bunch of them with their bare hands & threw them back.
Seth was too cool to hang out with his dad & brothers, so he chilled with his rad uncles for most of the week. He got to go on hikes, practice karate moves, talk about (extremely exaggerated) animal facts, hitch-hike (don't ask) & took a hilarious ride in the raft on the river. There was a bit of a current wanting to push them back to shore. It took them about 10 minutes to even leave the shore. They bumbled around, trying to coordinate their rowing efforts. Eventually they made it over to a dock. (Thanks, Michael & Nic, for being Seth's buddies!!! You were SO GREAT with him!!! He had a BLAST with you!)
The last night, we were rained on, so everyone piled into our tent, bundled & snuggled up & played a really fun game called Mafia (Emily introduced us to it). Even the kids were able to play & LOVED it!!! I don't know why everyone kept killing me, but it was still fun (OK..........croquet is not the only game I suck at).
It was still raining the next day when we were packing up to leave. We shoved everything into cars & trailers as fast as possible, hugged each other goodbye & went home......wet. All in all, it was a great family bonding time. There were no big fights, it was sunny almost all week.................it was wonderful. And now I miss everyone. *sigh*
Coming tomorrow: the gender of our baby.
