Beautiful Fall

I love Fall!  We are enjoying the times we get to go outside and have had some fun adventures.  The update on the house for those who haven't heard...we found another house that we are very excited about! We don't close until November 19th so we still have a while and I guess that is good because we have a lot of packing to do.  Anyway, here are some highlights from the last few weeks.

We went to a place called Johnsons Shut-In and it was so fun and pretty.  When we told the kids we were going they acted like we had just told them they had to do chores the whole day.  For some reason they were not interested in going, but we made them go anyway.  As soon as we got there Andrew admitted he was wrong (he told us he would not like it there) because he saw how awesome it was.  There was a short hike to the water and this is when Ethan said his now famous quote "We are hikers. We keep hiking until our legs our exhausted." He said it in a very animated way that was cute.  Now we repeat it whenever they need motivation to do some walking.

Eliza loves the water!

This is the wading and swimming area but most of it was full of climbing areas mixed in with small pools of water.  I don't have many pictures of Andrew because he was off exploring most of the time.

 

My favorite memory of camping as a child was the bag of plastic animals we always brought.  Now whenever we camp or are planning on spending a day outdoors we bring a bag of animals and it is Ethan's favorite!

These two were awesome climbers.  They all were, but these two surprised me most.

Here's one of Andrew.  He loved the spots where the water was deep enough that you could jump in from off of tall rocks.

The one injury of the day (after climbing all over sharp, slippery, tall rocks) was walking/running on the trail back to the car and Hannah slipped and banged her knee.  At least she had picked herself a bouquet of wildflowers.

 

The weather is beautiful now that it is no longer so hot and muggy.  Eliza wants to spend all day either riding her bike with training wheels or her balance bike.

Ethan loves playing with his good friend Layla.

Daniel and the kids building a soap box car (for the scouts).

The kids loved testing it out.  It was dark by the time they finished it but that didn't stop them, they just threw on some headlamps.

Poor Hannah jumped off the couch, tripped over Daniel, and banged her head on the speaker and had to get 14 stitches.  These three were more traumatized than she was.  They were very worried and made her this banner and a bunch of sweet notes while she was at the hospital.  Meanwhile Hannah was having a great time drinking hot cocoa and watching Frozen while she waited for her forehead to numb.

The kids had 10 days off school (6 school days off) for fall break so we spent a few days camping in Arkansas with our good friends the Weeks and the Bredensteiners.  It was so pretty and so much fun.

Hannah and Gabby had so much fun together.

We all used to camp together in Seattle and now Sarah lives in Arkansas and the Weeks live in Texas.  Sarah happens to be almost exactly in the middle so we all went there.  The first night there an armadillo walked through camp.

 

Ethan loved watching and playing with all of the caterpillars. 

A small hike

Hannah loved walking the Weeks' dog.

Eliza missed her naps but she was a happy camper.

Ethan made this map and we followed it together.

 

The girls had fun making fairy houses.

All the kids had fun with their bikes.  The big boys rode their bikes a lot but I didn't get any pictures.  These two had a blast riding together. 

The girls did a lot of art.

 

I love this picture!

 

Some daddy/daughter time enjoying nature.

 

Eliza loves being outside so she was so happy.

All the kids.  They had a lot of fun together, I wish we all still lived close.

 

The boys spent lots and lots of hours playing football which Andrew loved.  Ethan and Andrew also both had fun playing baseball.

 

The water was a little too chilly to actually go in it.  After three nights of camping we headed home. 

We also went to the pumpkin patch over fall break.

They had to climb through a pitch black hay maze to get up here.  They used the phone for a flashlight.

She missed her nap again and was so tired!

It was a hot day...it didn't seem right to wear shorts for pumpkin patch pictures though.