Scouts

Boy scouts now accpet girls into the packs and troops.  So Grace and Glen both joined this year.  So here is a picture of my scouts in their uniforms.  One Tiger and one Bear.

Camping with the Daniels

When you have one family in Virginia, one in Arkansas, and one in Iowa it is hard to see each other.  We decided to work with that problem and go camping in southern Indiana (which if you look for the middle point of all of those states it is right there.

 So we camped from July 9th to the 13th in O'Bannon Woods state park.  It was a lovely site with a playground and the bathhouse nearby.  We had all of our sites touching so it was like we had one huge site.

The campground also had a wonderful aquatic center with pool, splash pad, huge water slide (which Grace loved).

Water guns which Glen loved to shoot, but did not like being shot at with.  The kids loved it there.  We only got to go twice but it was nice having that option.

The aquatic center was a great place because the weather was so very hot.

It was almost always 90 degrees or hotter and very humid.  However, no rain fell to cool of the situation.  When camping it is good that it does not rain, but we were hoping it would to just break the oppressive heat.  But we had fun in spite of the heat.

Most of the time, while we were camping we just took some time to rest and relax.  Grace found a good place to read, and start to learn about Dog Man which is now one of her favorite series.

Glen loved playing with his Star Wars magnets and played a "game" that he made up with anyone that would play.

Here Grandpa Steve is trying to learn how to play.  However, with Glen's rules he is always the winner...

As I said, resting and relaxing.  This time it is Matt in the nice spot of the hammock.

Grace again.

We spent a day at Boone Caverns.  It was founded by Squire Boone (brother to Daniel Boone).  It was an old time cavern, candy shop, mill, gem mining, candle making, and other things.  Here we are looking for gems and pretty stones.

Grace found a beautiful green stone.

Glen had a few good finds also.  In fact we got many beautiful stones out of the deal.

This is the water wheel that runs the mill.  The water comes out of the caverns.  It was a beautiful site even though it was a lot of walking and very hot.  Did I mention it was hot that week?

I think the kids were wanting to jump the fence and play in the run off stream that was down the hill from them.

Not to be outdone, Glen also got in some resting and relaxing with a book.  It was one of his Star Wars books.

On another day we decided to try out one of the hiking trails that was on the camp grounds.  It was a 2 mile hike.  Here are the girls being our fearless leaders as we start on the hike.

A little farther back we find the rest of the crew.  It was Chris, Katie, Ellie, Matt, Glen, Grace and I.

We all finished the hike and I think had a good time.

A snack of smores.  What could be better with camping?  Other than Glen's other favorite thing to do, which was find all of the spiders around the campsite and pick them up to transport them to a safe location where predators would not get them.  We found that kind of cute, Ellie however did not like that very much.  She did not like the bugs that were found while camping.

Playing catch with Grandpa Steve.

Cooking with Grandma Sue.  Grace tried to help with the cooking every chance she got.  Grandma Sue was really good at giving her tasks that she could help out with.

It was a great week, but once in the car we realized how exhausting it was.  So glad that we were able to spend time with family and make those memories.

July 4th

 Happy July 4th everyone!  We had a nice relaxing day.  Set off some fireworks in Mamaw and Papaws driveway with Mike, Amy, Austin, and Adam.

 While setting of the fireworks the kids stayed safe in the bed of Papaw's truck.

It was a pretty amazing show.  Later, we were lucky enough to see another great show of fireworks with friends put on by the city.

Glen's Creation

In his own design, Glen created this AT-AT from Star Wars.  We are pretty proud of it!

Beach 2018

 We skipped a year.  But this year once again the Kiser family rented a beach house in Sandbridge and had a very nice vacation at the beach.

 Grace was up bright and early every morning getting her swimsuit on and ready to go out even before breakfast.  Then we would come back for lunch only to go back out as soon as possible.  She kept us out in the sun and the sand as much of the time as possible.

 Her favorite activity was to dig VERY big holes.  You will see pictures of many of them in this post.

 The water was a bit rough while we were there, but the sand was nice and we had a few good days of riding the waves.  But most of the time we only went in to our ankles and some of the time not even that.

 Yet another big hole!

 Here is Papaw watching the waves.

 This guy loved the sand.  He went out into the water a few times, but most of the time you could find him diging in the sand or floating in our pool at our beach house.  He loved to chase down sand crabs and and collecting sand fleas and making a habitat for the sand fleas.

 Kite flying was a fun activity for all.  Grace especially loved doing this.

 Grace and Matt and their creation (which did not last long once the tide came back in).

 One day Matt, Grace, Glen and I went into Virginia Beach and went putt putting.  We also walked around and had some ice cream.

 It is very nice to be able to have the entertainment of the big beach, but the relaxation of the smaller beach.

 I do not remember who won but I do know that both Grace and Glen had at least two hole in ones during this game.

 It was a fun game.

 Mike brought many games and a common site to see was the kids crowded around the table with Mike playing some game.  This one was like jenga where you pulled sticks and did not want the monkeys to fall down.

 This was our pool.  When we wanted calmer waters, or even to be able to get into the water to float or swim this is where we went.  Glen would not go in without the swim vest.  However, a week later we went to the pool and he decided to go in the pool without it.  Then a few minutes later he decided that he wanted to swim (which he had never done before).  And he went underwater and swam about 3 feet!

A great vacation at the beach.