If you've never read this author, and you want some good hardy belly laughing, try his books!
The next morning started with hot chocolate in the traditional Old McDonald animal farm mugs......
Each mug has a different farm animal sitting at the bottom of it, and it is always a surprise to find which one sits in the mud puddle in the bottom of your own mug!
The annual hunt for the treasure chest which holds the birthday gifts for the year, began after breakfast....... There was a time when all 4 kids eagerly sought the chest, but now only the younger two participate in becoming the pirates who find the chest.
Owen and Micaela wait patiently (not!) while the Aunts and Uncles hide the clues and chest.....
Owen and Chico became good friends!
During the hunt, the kids find and follow clues that lead to the treasure..........
Yikes! Olivia walked the plank and slipped right off! Her chivalrous brother pulls her from the muddy waters........
Usually the gifts are in the chest, but this year Aunt Bethany J. decided to pull a trick! She put the final clue in the chest instead...........
Then hid all of the treasures in the wood pile!
Owen gets some kooky frog goggles that his Auntie put in for him........ (he is partial to those reptilian creatures!)
Zach opens a cool knife I brought home from Bolivia. It has a beautiful parrot on the top of the handle.
I brought Micaela a Bolivian nativity set........
Another frog for Owen..... this one from Bolivia, and it ribbits like a real frog when you rub the stick along the ridges on its back........
For Miss Liv, a pretty hand embroidered smocked dress from Bolivia, and a bracelet from our trip to Mexico earlier this year.
The final activity at this year's 'camp' is the shooting of Owen's BB gun and one of our 22's. Here Ryan is giving his 'what every man should know about shooting' speech.
Owen shot first and hit every single time!
Zach went next and also hit the target (tin cans set up on a saw horse)...........
Even Olivia hit the cans on every shot!
Micaela missed the first shot, then was right on....... I am a bit embarrassed to admit that I missed every time......... I have an excuse with having to shoot with my half strength contact eye, but still.......... every time?!?!
It was a tired crowd that loaded into our jeep for the 3 hour trek to their home...........Forget the outside world. Life has different laws in here. This is Campland, an invisible country. ~Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Another year already come and gone.......... bittersweet. We had a grand time, but by next summer, the kids will be yet another year older and moving further into young adulthood. Sniff. Thanks Scott and Nancy for loaning them to us yet another time......... it is too quiet in the big house now!
