thurrrrrrrsday

*it's amazing how much you can get done when you are waiting for a child to return home for the night. i'm all the way to thursday!

day 4 of horse camp was another rousing success. they started off every morning with horse lesson time and riding, and then in the afternoon they would do other activities. on monday they did ground driving and carriage rides, tuesday was soap carving and braiding, wednesday was nature time and "away day" (which was games at the cabin), thursday was archery, kayaking, and smokes, and friday was the horse show, paint a horse (wherein they actually painted a real horse), and tie-dye.

my little cowgirl.

on thursday i stayed for a run at greenwell after i dropped her off. i ran all along the water and back up to the main area, but that was less than a mile, so i decided to venture onto some of the trails. duh, duh, duh! i am not smart enough to be a trail runner. i have no sense of direction, and i'm a chicken. i don't like running  alone in secluded areas. at first it was ok, but then as i got deeper and more intwined in the whole maze, i started to get a little worried. i seriously had no clue where i was or which direction i needed to go to take me back. i finally realized i could look at the map on my cycle meter (which i use to map my run) and find my way back to my original trail. it only took me 4.5 miles. oh well, there are worse ways to spend your morning.

chris went to youth conference on thursday.

i believe this is his third, and final, year of yc (i think he missed his first year?). i can't say i'm sad about this aspect of him growing up, because i really hate the fight that going to any church outing entails. mama's of youth talked about this at length, and i think my theory is a) all kids are different and some don't fight each and every thing, b) it's hard to impress affluent kids, and c) this generation is so spoiled with their technology, food, etc.

he looks like he's having fun here, even though i got 2 "this sucks." texts from him. they were early, so maybe things were looking up by this point.

i called amy and she was laughing at the picture she has for when i call. little nerds!

we met up with the myers at the pool as soon as it opened at 11.

it was reaaaally bright.

she has decided she likes inching along the edge of the pool, deep end and all.

poor rosie broke her elbow, so now she's got a non-waterproof cast. she was a total trooper though and kept it dry the whole time!

when i picked addie up, i signed her out and talked to her camp crew, and kept looking around for her, but she was nowhere to be found. i finally asked where she was and heard a little voice say "i'm up here!" she's been all about the tree climbing lately.

since greenwell park is part of our more to explore program, i brought a blanket, snack, and book to be able to spend some time there and really feel like we've "done" it. it was so nice out, and i so love reading with my kids, it was perfect.

alexis and tito wanted to take the girls to the pool, (second time for frankie that day) so they got their suits on, and then we heard the magical sound of the ice cream truck! since that is an item on our summer bucket list, we all got our shoes on and ran as fast as we could to track him down.

this silly minion ice cream caused a lot of drama. frankie and delaney both wanted one, but franks got their last one. the horror. then franks ate half of it and decided she didn't want it anymore. sorry, frankie, it doesn't work like that.

addie informed us that "the red part of my firecracker tastes like heaven." a girl after her own dramatic mama's heart!

this one had to get a choco-taco.

summer bucket list item - √

little miss hates-fun decided she'd go to lowes with matt and i instead of the pool. she regretted that decision about halfway in, but what are you gonna do. she had gone to lowes with matt last week, so she was excited to show me the fountains.

after our lowes trip, matt replaced our front door knob, the one that broke last week. whenever people would knock at the door, we'd have to point to the garage and hurry to meet them out there. #keepinitclassy

and finally, one more from youth conference. there's chris on our far right, white shirt with his arm around scott. again, looks to be enjoying himself, right?