Hawk Creek

Jason and the boys left Thursday evening to camp at Hawk Creek. I had to work Thursday night, so I joined them Friday. Hawk Creek campground is about an hour from our house on the Columbia River. We had a blast, as we always do camping. The campground is off a bend in the river and its almost like a private little lake. The water was warm, there is a beautiful waterfall and the weather was HOT! 100 degrees hot. Connor and Piper were in the kayaks a lot! Piper loves the kayaks and tries to jump in every time we put them in the water. Kaiden was swimming almost the entire weekend. The boys were able to have a fire Thursday night, but there was a fire ban the rest of the weekend since it's so hot and dry. I brought some milk chocolate fondue and fruit for a fun desert instead of smores. Along with ice cream cones! I put peanut butter inside Piper's kong, filled it with water and froze it for a 'Pup-sicle' for her. If Connor wasn't in a kayak you could usually find him lounging on the sofa in the RV reading his book. If Kaiden wasn't swimming in the water then it was night time and he was sleeping. That kid swam from dusk to dawn. Piper and Jason swam a bunch too. I spent a lot of time kayaking around the lake with Connor. Usually talking about the book he's writing and new things he wants to add. I even attached Kaiden's tube to my kayak and towed him around the lake. Every evening around 9:00pm the toads crawl up from the lake into the camp ground. The boys loved hunting around with flash lights looking for them. I start the day after breakfast with applying sun screen to me and the boys. None of us got sun burnt even with being in the sun 8+ hours every day. Jason always waits too long before he finally lets me apply sun screen to him though. He got burnt pretty good. We had trouble with the mosquito's every evening. We all got chowed. Mainly by our ankles. I brought the fishing poles. Jason and the boys went fishing off the kayaks. They didn't catch anything though. Since we booked this campground at the last minute we were in 1 camp site for Thursday - Saturday and we had to move to a different spot for Saturday night. The campground has 20 spots and almost every spot was filled over the weekend, but Sunday morning everyone left before 10:00am. It was kinda strange, but nice at the same time. We moved the RV to a shaded spot closer to the dock and 2 other campers showed up. We had the place almost to ourselves. We spent the morning kayaking and swimming before we drove home. Another fun family adventure!

kayaks

We bought some kayaks today! We rented some last year (the hard kayaks) and we all loved it. I've been wanting to get some, but I wasn't sure how to transport a huge hard kayak. I suggested the inflatable kayaks to Jason and at first he wasn't interested. But then 15 minutes later (after he researched it a little bit) he changed his mind and found these! The seats are adjustable for 1-2 people each. It was fast to inflate, comes with 4 oars, and a convenient storage/carry bag.  We took them to Silver lake tonight to test them out. Connor rode with me and Kaiden rode with Jason. We crossed the lake and then switched partners for the row back.  We love them!  The only complaint that we have is that the oars are a little short. It's way easier than I expected it to be and very comfortable! It's also really stable. There were boats zipping around making waves and the kayaks handled the waves really good.  I can't wait to take these on vacation with us this summer!

last baseball game

 The boys had their best friends spend the night Friday. Raheem and Landry were excited to see Jabba swim in the bath tub and to hear her squeaking sound. Saturday Grandma and Grandpa came over to watch Kaiden's last baseball game.  We went to lunch at Bruchis before the game. The entire team has grown so much in their abilities. They don't keep score at this age, but our team definitely won. Every player on our team hit the ball (coach pitch, no t-ball) and got on base.  They still need work in the out field with catching the ball, but most of the kids can throw pretty good.  Later in the day we worked on the front yard. We have 3 utility boxes located to the left of our driveway. We've been talking about removing the grass and creating a little landscape area there, so we don't have to mow around them.  I also wanted to put up a sharing library for the neighborhood too and this would be the perfect spot to do that. Today we outlined the space and started removing the grass.  I asked Jason if we should 'call before we dig', but since we were only cutting into the ground 2 inches to remove the grass he didn't think it was necessary.  Well, we found out they didn't legally bury the lines.  Instead they just laid the cable line on top of the dirt and threw the grass on top.  Our cable wasn't even 2 inches below the surface. Luckily though Jason is an expert handy man and knows how to reconnect the wires and we dug a trench to bury the line deeper.  Saturday was also my birthday.  I think the day turned out pretty good! The boys had fun with their sleepover, we enjoyed Kaiden's last baseball game, we had lunch with my parents and we worked in the yard. We ended the night with a chocolate cake that Jason picked up. I think this is the first time he's ever bought me a cake too! I'm a very blessed woman and I'm very thankful for my wonderful family.  Last picture is of Jason... waiting to finally get his Covid vaccine.