A Decade of Camping Adventures

Last weekend we joined up with the Sanders family at Deep Creek Lake State Park for our tenth annual Deterding-Sanders Camping adventure!  Alison, are you impressed that I managed to post these pictures so soon after our weekend together?! (Alison is a much more consistent blogger mama than I am).  

It took us five hours to get to Deep Creek thanks to traffic and a flat tire, but much to Grace's relief, the Sanders girls were still awake and a campfire-- and s'mores-- were waiting for us!  Steve and Kevin set up the camper in the dark, bless them.

Saturday was the day for the usual Daddy-Kid hike.  We moms always encourage a nice long daddy-kid hike, *wink *wink*

Peter and Evie!

A triathalon was happening during our stay, and the athletes ran right past our campsites.  This created hours of entertainment for all six of the kids who are over the age of one!  They even came up with this clever cheer:

"C'mon person you can do it, just put a little power to it!"

Leah's Seventh / Evie's Golden First Birthday Party

Your "golden" birthday is the birthday when your age matches the date of your birth.  Evelyn turned one on the first, so this year was her golden birthday!  (Grace is miffed that she has to wait until she's THIRTY to have her golden birthday). We had our usual big family party in the back yard, and Leah was excited to have a shared party with a sister, since Grace and Avery always have a party together, too.

The Birthday girls:

Jane and cousin Leanna:

Lots of overly-helpful sisters to open gifts:

Leah with cousin Kip presiding:

Our family with our two new electronic dogs (the dogs are girls, too!)

Every kid in the family gets one of Aunt Candy's bear cakes to smash on their first birthday!

What a twenty-first century cake smash looks like… complete cell phone documentation:

Jane got impatient and decided to show Evie how it's done:

Leah got Frozen stick-on nails that made her feel like Aunt Becki!