The "Ketchup-iest Catchup" of All Time!!

What I really mean by that is...I'm going to dump a whole fricking summer's worth of memories into ONE blog post, that's right, 1!!  I've neglected this for too long, and it's eating away at my soul...so, here it is!!  Buckle up, it's gonna be a bumpy ride!

First off, this was our summer bucket list (created by Avery):

It's a little fuzzy, but each summer we try and identify a few things that we all want to do individually as well as a family.  We got to most of them this summer, which was great! Some of them happened early on in the summer, such as our Idaho vacation (which I already blogged about), and a trip to the AA children's hands on museum. We did not make it to berry picking or Mackinac Island yet, but these are just some things we can carry over to next summer.


1.  Girl's Camp--July 7-11

I was a leader for the first year's and I thought this described a typical first year girl perfectly.  Still young, sweet, excited about everything, and helpful. The girls were trying to win the clean cabin award, and thought that if they left their scriptures open to our cabin's theme scripture it might help our cause. Just so cute!

Anybody who knows me, knows that it had to look CUTE in our cabin! Thanks to my awesome YCL's, I think we pulled it off!

Winning the clean cabin award, the girls went above and beyond for sure!

This was our cabin name and theme for the summer!

My girls!!

This is THE game at girl's camp.  It's called Gaga ball, and here is a pic of Avery dominating the game!

Me and Ave waiting for FOOD! in front of the dining hall (we obviously live in an area where Alden B. Dow has a LOT of influence on architecture!)

Maryn as Ursula in her cabin skit on Friday night

Avery as Kermit in her cabin skit

Such a beautiful view every day, our weather for the week was just gorgeous!

Fantastic week, and something I will never forget!

2.  While the big girls were away, Dad and Parker got to check off one of Dad's bucket list items: going to see a movie at the Clare Ideal theater, getting donuts at Cops 'n' donuts, and grabbin' burgers at a local greasy spoon.

 
3.  A trip to Oswego to check out a castle and have some Louisiana cookin'

4.  Parker takes swimming lessons!

5.  Lazy days in Midland: Chippewa Nature Center

 

And a trip to the Tridge...

Overall, the summer was great!  We spent a lot of time together.  I had to work a lot more this summer, so the girls spent more time at home just hanging out.

Of particular mention is that Mark and I made a goal of losing some weight. We decided to make simple changes to our diet (eating less sugar/salt, portion control, and less junk food), and walking almost every night after dinner.  We started small, but by the end of the summer we had gotten our mileage up to almost 4 miles resulting in each of us losing over 25 lbs!!  I'd say that's a sure sign it was a great summer!  YAY FOR US!  :)