Swimming and Games

The afternoon of the 4th was spent with the kids playing in the pool. Uncle Kelly's pool has certainly been used this week!! Courtney even got little Bree (my cousins little girl) to jump off the diving board with her!

The kids all got tired of swimming after a couple if hours and went inside to play. Courtney has girls her age to play with but Ethan is older than the other kids so he was bored. I old him to find a board game for us to play together. He found this:

It is a great game!! Ethan and I played the game and were laughing so hard! After a while there was a crowd and we were all cracking up. We played it twice but most people were just sitting around laughing. Uncle Kelly didn't even remember having the game.

How it works is the person 1 rolls the dice and person 2 asks them a survival question. These questions range from How to recognize signs of heatstroke to How to avoid being abducted by aliens. Each question has 3 answers and you have to pick the correct one. If person 1 gets it correct, he/she moves forward the amount on the dice. If he/she gets it wrong, person 2 gets to move the amount on the dice.

The questions are great and the answers are hilarious.  Ethan wants the game!

After we played it a couple of times Ethan was tired of that so a few of the adults played UNO until it was time for dinner. 

My cousin, Aaron, did a great steak BBQ with corn in the cob. It was good food!

We took a family picture am them everyone began figuring out where to go to watch fireworks but our kids were too tired so we went back to the hotel to organize, do laundry and go to bed.

4th of July Races

We had signed up for the 4th of July run in Ashland, Oregon. The kids and I would do a 2 mile race while everyone else would run a 10k.

When we got here, my cousin mentioned that Ashland may not be as family friendly as we would want. Apparently it is a "clothing optional" race. So we all decided to sign up for the CentralPoint 5k and kids run.

The adults signed up for the 5k race which started at 7:30 am. They did a great job! It was a smaller race with not too many people but they did really well.

The kids were free but they still got a t-shirt. Courtney ran 1/2 mile with Ethan running a 1 mile race. They both did well. Courtney got a pretty bad side ache quickly so she didn't run too fast but Ethan ran the entire way.  The local football team was helping so one of them ran with Ethan. 

That is one tired Ethan!

Now we are waiting for the parade to begin.

  

Worn Out!

This vacation has worn Courtney out!! This never happens in the car:

She is OUT!

Applegate Lake

We had made plans to go to Applegate Lake with everyone, but it ended up just being our family and the Overton family.

After breakfast, we loaded up, bought snacks, bought gas and were off. We had vague directions so we weren't too sure how to get there but we all found it!

For $5 parking fee we got to spent almost 4 hours swimming in the lake. There was a long grassy hill that lead down to the lake. We put our stuff in the shade under some trees, applied sunscreen and got in the water. It was so nice. 

I honestly was shocked that it wasn't crowded but there were only a few other families there. The water was a great temperature and clear enough that you could see the bottom. Everyone had a blast.

 

After swimming for a while we all got out to take a break. I was still in the water chatting when Courtney came running down yelling that the squirrels had eaten our food!! About 4 squirrels had gotten into our food bag and had begun eating our pretzels and bread. Bryan and Ethan went after  them!

When we had dried off and were getting hot, we decided to get back in the lake for a while longer. The kids had so much fun!!

We eventually got tired and so we packed up and split up. Part of the Overton clan are on their way to pick up our race packets from Ashland and we are on our way to pick up our race packets from Central Point. (I will explain later.)

We will meet back at Kelly's house for dinner tonight. I have a really fun family!

Going To Medford

We woke up, packed up our stuff and drove to Medford, OR. It was a pretty uneventful drive. We got to see Mt. Shasta from a distance.

We checked into our hotel and hung out for a while until other people got here. Then we drove to Uncle Kelly's house.

Kelly has a pool so the kids immediately changed and jumped in. They spent the next 2 hours playing in the pool.

After they were good and pruned, they changed and Kelly got a horse saddled for them to ride.

They each got to ride 2 times and they lived it.  After dinner we went back to the hotel to sleep. We were all pretty exhausted!!

Sacramento

We arrived Sunday afternoon and just spent the day relaxing.  Ethan wanted to sleep in so he got up at about 6:30 am Monday morning. We all got ready and were off for a fun day.

Here is our cabin that is next to a pond:

Here is a picture of the cranes on the pond behind our cabin:

We loaded in the van and drove to see the Temple since nothing else was open yet. It was a but hard to find but we did it!  It was so pretty and the kids had fun walking around it.

Then we headed to the State Capitol Building. They gave free tours of the building an I wanted to see it. So we found the place and waited for the tour to begin. They had told us that our guide was verbose and that we could leave any time during the tour. I am glad they warned us because he went on and on. It was interesting but the kids were bored. Bryan pointed out to Ethan that seeing a state Capitol is required for the Citizenship in the Nation merit badge but Ethan don't care. We did make it fun though.

The Capitol:

Courtney and the statue: 

The gallery for the Assembly:

The gallery for the Senate:

We are lunch on the lawn and then drove to the California Train Museum. The kids were so excited!! They made it through the "boring tour" and were ready to go someplace fun.

It was an amazing and huge train museum!! We spent over 2 hour there and the kids had a blast!!

We were tired and really hot so we went back to the KOA an went swimming (in their really dirty but cold water pool).

After swimming, we relaxed in the cabin until it was time to go to the movies!! We saw "Monster University."

Random photos from today:

Yosemite

After breaking camp, we drove to Yosemite. Ethan was in heaven the minute he saw the first waterfall. He loves taking picture so we had to stop for him to get some shots.

After entering the park, we stopped at a meadow for another camera break.

Bryan attracts bugs which is great for the rest of us because they are too busy buying him to even come near us. But once we put bug spray on him we all starting getting bitten. ;)

We stopped for a hike around a lake. It had a river we had to cross that made Courtney really nervous. Bryan ended up carrying her across.

We all got across ok but the Mosquitos were eating us alive!! So we quickly headed back to the car. We decided to do a driving tour of Yosemite. Although we did get out a couple more times:

At an overlook of Half Dome:

And at White Sands Beach:

But it was WAY TOO HOT to do much hiking around.

When we had our fill of Yosemite, we drove to Sacramento and checked into a KOA Kabin for the night.

We are all super tired, super dirty and super hot!! But we have showers tonight and AC in the Kabin. 

Random pictures:

Ethan pointing at half dome.

Courtney being grumpy.

Ethan.