VBS Son Rock Camp

It's Vacation Bible School time of year again, this years theme is Son Rock Camp. My only attendees this year are Hayley and Tristan. Trevor is too old (and doesn't like things like that anyway) and Colin respectfully asked if he could opt out this year. This will be Hayley's last year unless she opts to be a helper next year. The kids had fun singing, dancing, learningabout the bible, making crafts and playing games...oh and having a fun snack. A selection of pictures follows, any group shots look suitably distant to not show other people's kids faces.

above-I have no idea why Tristan is making such a face!

below-dance Tristan, he's got the right moves!

Race Day

We had an opportunity to attend a Nascar race on Sunday. Bobby's work gave away tickets to the employees. We aren't race fans but it seemed a fun experience for the kids so we decided to have a day at the speedway. It was definitely interesting and even fun at times but also quite the assault on the senses, so many sights, smells, sounds. At first we were only going to bring the younger boys but Hayley decided she'd really like to go too. We left at 9:00 AM (tried to leave earlier but it just didn't work out) and didn't get home until 10:15PM.
The speedway is less than an hour from our home but with the traffic it took 1.5 hours to drive there and 4 hours to drive home! Here is a pictorial with comments of the day.

Arrive at Speedway at 10:30, the first sights we see are thousands of RV's, 1000s of Porta Potties, massive amounts of litter on the ground, mainly beer bottles, Tristan said these people are LITTERING, LOL, lots of helicopters and mobil shower units!

We're here, wow this is HUGE!

The kids don't look at all excited, I think thy were just bewildered too. We did miles of walking just to get situated with getting to the stands from the parking area, picking up another ticket (we'd only been given 4 so had to buy 1) and getting to our seats.

helicopters kept flying by to bring people to the track.

Someone needs a nap.

They're off. The roar from the cars is massively loud!

It was fun to watch although after about 100 laps the kids were getting a little bored. It really is a long race for people who have never attended before.

Much more enjoyable with ear plugs!

Colin, who I thought would enjoy the day the best, actually had the hardest time with the noise.

around they go....

Crashes added excitement!

Late in the day rain arrived and a lot of people left.

As the track gets wet the official decide if they will wait out the rain or end the race, it was getting quite near the end anyway.

The rain got harder so the officials declared a winner at 273 laps. Colin had liked 20 and 24 and Tristan liked #2, they were happy their cars, which they chose due to the colors, did well. It turned out that the winner was only 19 years old, the kids thought that was cool.

Bedraggled children

Masses of people trying to leave now that the race is over.

Trying to leave we were in the car for hours! The kids did well waiting, they really rose to the challenge. I know I was getting so tired and impatient so they must have felt even worse. I had a few toys to help them stay occupied.

Very sleepy, we're been in the car for almost 3 hours at this point.

Very silly too.

at last, the road home.....

It was quite an experience.

Luna Moth

Younger boys have colds, ugh but at least it only seems to bother them first in the morning and late in the day. I hope the rest of us don't catch it. Although we started slow this morning the boys felt better by about 9 or 10 and the weather was humid so we went to the lake for a few hours. Later thunder storms arrived and then by evening it had cleared and the sun was back, we did some dog walking.

On the way to the lake we met this beautiful Luna Moth.


Colin was in awe of it, he loves creatures and spends a lot of time out doors yet I think this is only the second time he's seen a Luna Moth.

We forgot Tristan's glove that stops sand getting in his cast! He tried to play left handed instead.

That's about it, a nice summer day except for the boys runny noses.

Beach Day

The day started off cloudy but quite warm. I got in an hours walk with one of the dogs and then we got ready to go to the lake. We decided to take Freeze to the lake since he loves to swim and likely nobody else would be on the beach with the clouds. That was the case indeed and we had a fun couple hours swimming with Freeze. The day seemed to be clearing and we needed lunch so we brought Freeze home, had something to eat and then headed back to the lake. The sun came out and we all had a nice time swimming and playing. A couple other families were at the lake too. Tristan was able to talk to a big kid who'd just gotten his cast off after a skateboarding injury, they had fun comparing "battle scars and tales". One family at the lake had 6 kids and brought their dog(the lake is supposedly no dog in the summer season but lots of people take the chance and nobody ever seems to mind), it was fun to chat with them and the kids played together some. There were a bunch of new signs at the lake which gave everyone a good laugh such as no diving (huh, kids spend half their time diving), no extended under water swimming....lots of strange stuff. I wonder if someones child was hurt last year and they tried to sue the town or something, pretty bad when we need rules to compensate for a few people's lack of common sense. More likely his might be due to the new-ish parks and rec director in town who seems to be over zealous about most things. The signs gave everyone a laugh anyway, there were about 4 sets of different ones all over the place.

Colin checks out the latest "Boys Life" scouting magazine before we head to the beach.


We found a solution so that Tristan can play in the sand without getting any in his cast.


Freeze had a grand time swimming with us.

One set of the new lake signs, I think this is overdoing it a bit.

The sun came out, hooray!

It was a very nice day and we're all tired now.