Boys' Camp Week

 They rafted a river.

They slept in a Star Wars themed loft

They served in the temple.

They adapted to new plans when original plans were ruined by rain and bad planning.

They had a blast at an amusement park.

That's Mister Man on the far right.

There was a whole group shot taken, but I chose this one of just my men.

The rainy-need-to-adapt-to-new-plans day took them to a few museums in St. Louis, MO.

Brother found out he LOVES roller coasters.

Mister Man and Beowulf found out they don't.  But they did find other rides they loved.

Sir Walter Scott found out that it's time to accept that his body is aging--at least where roller coasters are concerned!

They came home smelly, happy, tired, and full of stories to share.

Now they're a tiny bit disappointed because they looked forward to the trip for so long and it's over.

The same is true for Little Princess.  She's had such a busy, happy summer, and now that there's only one adventure left before we'll settle in for another school year, she's realizing that anticipation is half the joy.

We were very quiet at home while the boys were gone--Just Baymax, Lola, Ladybug, Little Princess, Nature Angel, and me.

Seriously, Sir Walter Scott and the three big boys eat over half of the food our family consumes!

I made little, bitty, baby-sized meals for the rest of us, and there were leftovers!

Nature Angel was busy this week with job orientations and paperwork processing.  She also had two different YCL activities because the young women who ran Girls' Camp this summer bonded so much that they couldn't bear for camp to be the end of their relationships.

While she was gone at a lake activity, the rest of us at home had a picnic dinner at our favorite spray park.

Little Princess made a couple of loaves of perfect homemade bread that we slathered with fresh, homemade strawberry jam.

Nature Angel helped Ladybug create a sweater pattern and choose yarn.

I walked Ladybug, Lola, and Baymax to our library to make library day more of an adventure.  Lola was pretty mad about not driving the mile there and back, but she came along and ended up having a good day in spite of herself.

Youth night for the teen girls was a lake adventure.

Nature Angel takes such beautiful pictures of Ladybug!!!!

With the reduction in grocery expenses for the week, I used the surplus money to buy extra strawberries while they were on sale, and I processed 30-40 lbs of them.  Most went into the freezer, but we have half a dozen pints of jam added to the pantry as well.

The day after the boys came home, we headed out for an American Rhythm park day.

We moms were busy with the non-profit paperwork while the kids were off playing games all over the park, so the only picture I have is one Little Princess took of herself with an AR baby that she had the privilege of holding all the way through a nap.

We had an intentionally quiet day on Friday.  Some of the boys slept in very long!

But Little Princess spent Friday afternoon and all day Saturday at Whiteman Air Force Base volunteering at their air show.  She was assigned to traffic control in a parking lot, but before that happened, she was supposed to be working crowd control.  When the security team went to drop her off at the spot they had planned, they found a tank with armed special forces personnel.  

"Hmmm, seems like this location is covered," they said.

Little Princess was laughing at the idea of special forces needing her help with crowd control.

She was quite happy to be stationed on the helipad-turned-parking-lot instead.

In our little world of academics, we finished volume 3 and started volume 4 of our Bible Story series during Morning Meeting.

We're still reading Super and The Story Girl.

Lola is almost done with Math 3, and that's good because she only has 14 days to finish the 1 year subscription!!

I am making 24-25 school year plans, and some of them are in good shape!