Update!

I know, I know - you're tired of hearing that I'm behind! :) Me too. Little has changed on that front though!

Still, lets get some of our recent events on the record...

I spent last Thursday doing a million things to get ready for our Fourth of July camping trip to Toronto Lake. Matt & Kaden came by, and he pulled the boat to Toronto for us - nice! We had the camper weighed down with our coolers, camp chairs, grill, groceries, and everything we needed for the weekend, picked the boys up at 4, ran last-minute errands (even more last-minute than those I had done all day) and finally headed out of town... It is a lot of work to get everything ready for the first big camping weekend of the summer! (We should have done this sooner!)

Our drive to Toronto was a little intense, but we made it, had a camp site reserved, and got set up. Matt was out later to start us a fire and Katy came out too, so we had a lot of great conversation well into the evening!

Friday morning was relaxed. We went into town and asked Mom to go to breakfast with us, while Matt & Gabe took the firetruck and started hauling water out to finish up the mud pit. Jermie headed back to town, Katy, Quintin and her bf Josh met us in YC and the boys enjoyed the park for awhile. That afternoon, Jermie and I played some frisbee at camp while the boys napped and then spent the evening continuing the game with some people camped across from us. We decided not to go into town for the street dance, and made a day and night of it at the camp site.

Friday night Jermie and I stayed up really late with Matt and Alli. It was good, fun, wild, crazy times! :) Alli and I even made it to a couple of other campsites and woke up Beth, a good friend from high school, to talk for awhile! loved it.

Saturday morning Toronto is buzzing with everything going on downtown! The parade is gearing up, dad's flag is flying proud, our cousins arrive, and we all get to hang out at the house and enjoy the parade and excitement. A fun start of the day! The boys LOVED the parade! Ashton -- picked up a sucker, opened a sucker, sat down and ate a sucker, and had to be prodded along to go and pick up more candy! Gabe waved and yelled and got, I think, a record amount of candy! He loved it! Then the boys got on these crazy carts my sister had borrowed - old lawn mowers that had reverse steering so where ever you turned you went the other direction... Everyone, old and young, loved those!

Saturday afternoon was Mud Volleyball! :) This is the most highly-anticipated event of Toronto Days, for my family and dozens of others. There were 20 teams this year. Wouldn't you know, our team wasn't slated to play until ... dead ... freaking ... last. So, after waiting Four and a Half HOURS (& 50 jello shots later,) the game didn't go so well! Our team was swiftly defeated. (BOO!)
*Side note: the Corner had 'The Ludwig' as a special over the weekend of the Fourth. It's a tasty sandwich they put on the menu when my dad was ordering it so often. I never made it out there to order one, but I hope they sold a lot of em! Also, this year's mud volleyball was in memory of my dad. We were all bummed this didn't earn us an honorary first play in the mud pit! (ha!) But the overall recognition, just a few small things here and there, that was nice... it's hard to be home on the Fourth without him.

Back to Saturday, after the mud volleyball, because it was so rainy and windy, we all headed out to camp and showers, but didn't get to take the boat out as planned. :/ We did have a most amazing campfire dinner, good times and conversations, but overall we were pretty bushed - plus fireworks were cancelled due to weather - rescheduled, I should say. Hope we make it to see them over Labor Day weekend...

Jermie got sick Saturday night and went to bed even before the boys. After I got them showered, he stayed in bed with them. :/ No fun!

But, as a family we rallied yet again to head to mom's and shoot some fireworks off in the front yard. Because, after all, what's Fourth of July without letting a family of pyros play with firecrackers!

One firecracker just short of disaster - a fountain was lit on it's side, so it shot off headed straight towards mom and everyone seated by her, then took aim directly at me and hit my feet then exploded directly under my chair, spun again and hit my older brother, spun again and hit my older brother a second time (he was still running!) and by that point we were all either laughing or near tears with fright! It was CrAzY@! :) We'll laugh about that for another year or so - no injuries, even on my feet, so it was all good! I was too nervous to light any more after that though! :)

Back at camp, we had another late and wild night... Oh wait, did you think I would really have three late and wild nights in a row!? :) We did go back to camp and this time Bill & Summer were out with us for the first time. Bill & Matt immediately decided there was not enough firewood and left me, Alli, Summer and Jamie at camp. Girl Talk! :) We all started cracking up when they came back with the truck bed piled above the tool boxes with firewood. We all warmed up when they built us a nice big signal fire! :) The fire was too warm and cozy though, I ended up falling asleep in my lawn chair and eventually turned in while everyone else stayed up. (Sigh.) A fun & exhausting day!

Jermie was still sick Sunday morning and slept in. Matt, Alli and I took the boys on an 'adventure' walking out to the docks and sword fighting with drift wood. We all headed into town, had lunch at the house, sat on the front porch, watched the boys play together, and eventually we all had to get back on the road and headed home...

That's a good enough spot to call this a wrap. It was a fun weekend - odd weather... ( I guess since I'm not pregnant, we didn't need triple digits over the 4th!? ha ha!) Not our most competitive mud volleyball team... No fireworks display over the lake... Didn't get to take the boat out...

BUT our boys *absolutely loved camping* and being out at the lake. Gabe says his favorite things were the parade and playing on Katy's funny 4-wheelers. They both got absolutely covered in mud at mud volleyball (got to get in and play before the adult games started) and loved that, too!
For me, it's all about family and I love getting to spend time with them - we're a fun family, so we have fun times, always! :) xo