Lake Sakakawea State Park Camping Trip

Camping

We took our first Camping trip with the kids last weekend (Thursday night-Sunday morning).  We had a lot of fun at Lake Sakakawea State Park.  Josh bought a new tent and nice air mattress for the trip.  We had so much fun, that we decided to go camping in Medora this weekend.

Campsite

Setting up the tent

 John really liked playing in the "TenT". (He emphasizes the last t when he says tent.  It's so cute!)

Lu Lu liked playing in the tent too

Garrison Dam

 We could see the Garrison Dam from our campsite.  Josh enjoyed using the word dam throughout the weekend.  For example, he liked eating the "Dam Fish".  His jokes went on and on...:)

Lu loved playing outside on her blanket.

Johnny with his hood up.

Sitting by the campfire

Making pancakes for breakfast on Friday.

 As you can see, there wasn't any campers in sight the first day (only within sound distance...).  That soon changed.  Every campsite was filled by Saturday.
Sound....Thursday night, we heard loud music til 2am, when I couldn't stand it anymore and had Josh call the county sheriff.  They contacted the Park Ranger and he made the loud/drunk camping couple go to bed.  The ranger felt bad that they had kept us up.  He told us the next day that they wouldn't bother us again, because they were getting kicked out as soon as they were up and sober.

Johnny by the lake a fishing spot that Josh caught a Drum.

Josh & his Drum.  What a weird looking fish!

Josh fishing by our campsite.  John and Mom played in the water, skipping and throwing rocks while Daddy fished.

Small Mouth Bass we ate for supper.

The playground was one of Johnny's favorites of the trip!

Smiley Lu

John & Lu

Josh starting Friday night's campfire.

 Our fire wood was damp from a rainstorm at home.  We bought a few bundles of dry wood to start the rest of our fires for the weekend.

Josh cooking up the fish

Frog Bellies

Johnny LOVES frog bellies!

What a cutie sleeping in the tent!

Mom and Lu.  Lu's having a late night snack.

Josh & Lu cooking french toast for breakfast on Saturday

Johnny enjoying the french toast.

John, Josh, and Olue swimming by our campsite.

 We tried to go swimming on Saturday, but the wind/waves were pushing all the sediments up to the beach making the water really muddy.  The lake was very flooded early this summer...So much that they had to open the spillway gates in the dam (never b/4 opened).  The water has gone down a lot (they closed the spillway gates the day before we arrived), but the water is kind of dirty from all the topsoil that washed into it.  There were a lot of campsites unavailable because they had been underwater earlier.

Josh caught a Northern at this fishing spot.

Johnny

 This was the best fishing spot, but the hardest to get to.  John enjoyed throwing scorio rock into the lake while Cedar splashed into the water after the rocks.  Johnny giggled so hard at his puppy.  It was so cute!

Back at the good fishing spot, but with 2 very tired babies!

Lu sucking on a cracker.

 I've tried to give Olue some Baby cereal, but she doesn't like it.  She does like to suck on big people food (like beans and crackers).  She gets made when we have to take the small pieces away (because she's choking/gagging on them).

Johnny & Lu going "Nigh Nigh" together in John's bed with their footballs.

Josh has started watching preseason football games and Johnny just loves them!  I can't believe how much he likes football...  "Go Go Go!"

Fishin'

Fishing at Gaebe Pond

Johnny now loves to fish.  There is a pond right outside of New Salem that is stocked for "youth, seniors, and handicapped".  We went there last Saturday and it was perfect for Johnny.  He caught lots of fish (small mouth bass).  Most of them were his size...You'll see in the pictures.  Now all he wants to do is go "fishin"!

Daddy baiting the hook with a "Wurm"

Johnny fishing

This fish is just his size.

I just love the look on John's face when he catches a fish!

Daddy had to help reel in this big one.

Flying fish!  Johnny threw this one back in.  He liked doing it until he got an owee.  Now he's scared to touch them.

"Choo Choo"

"Mommy, I got grass!  And now I'm gonna eat it!"  John got bored with fishing and we started throwing rocks in the pond, while Daddy had a blast with John's little Snoopy/Cars fishing pole.  I love how he's really getting into it in this pic.

 Sunday at Lake Tschida

We went to Lake Tschida on Sunday afternoon.  We had a lot of fun fishing, swimming, and just hanging out.  Josh only caught one fish, a small Northern, on his first cast.

Josh's amazing idea to bring the pack n play.  Lu had fun in here (not eating grass and rocks) for quite a while before she wanted to be held.

"See my wurm!"

Mommy Fishing and watching Johnny.

"Rocks!"

Johnny splashing

Johnny swimming with Daddy

 The Farm...
Our gardens are doing amazing.  The CSA baskets have been really full and the farmers market has been selling out!  Our new chickens are laying pullet eggs now...lots of them!  Summer work is starting to wind down.  We're happy for that and looking forward to fall projects and hunting!

Celery Plants

Corn stealer caught

 Josh caught this raccoon after one night of her eating some sweet corn.  We're glad we caught her before she destroyed too much.  We showed her to Johnny before Josh shot it.  Probably a bad idea.  He was a little upset.  When Josh came inside after burrying it, John said, "Puppy?  Puppy?  Coon?".  So, I think he thought it was a puppy.  We told him that raccoons are bad.  He seems to have forgotten about it.

Camping
We're going camping this weekend at Lake Sakakawea State Park this weekend.  We're really excited!  I better go get packing!



More Late-night Canning....

So, here we are Friday night canning again.  It's so nice to do it when Josh can help and when I know the kids won't be up before I'm done.  It's after midnight and the last canner of peaches is almost done.  Josh got a little excited about the peaches when he saw how nice they looked at the grocery store and bought 3 of them.  (They had looked really green last week.)  We ended up with 32 jars!  That'll last a while:).  Last night we were up past midnight canning Chokecherry juice.  Josh and I are pretty tired, but it feels really good to get it done.

We had an amazing farmer's market again today.  I had made a batch of Chokecherry syrup and a batch of CC Jelly this week to sell....I sold out of both plus 8 loaves of bread & most of the veggies I brought!  It's really nice to see the fruits of our labor turn into dollar bills!  (Hopefully the dollar bills will turn into a new washer and dryer this winter.  Mine are slowly ummm...deteriorating?  Josh already replaced the belt in the dryer a year or so ago, but now it's making a thumping noise...some days louder than others.  The washer has been working well lately, but sometimes it stops spinning-when full of water-and I have to pick it up a little and drop it to get it to start again.:)  I just hope they both last until we're ready to get new ones.)

Well, the canner is done.  Time to go to bed!  Good Night!

Olue can crawl....well, do the worm!

Olue Crawling

Olue can now get to what she wants.  She does the worm to crawl to toys or "off-limits" things (like houseplants).  It took me a couple videos to get her crawling.  I needed to entice her with one of those "off-limits" items.:)



Kitties

Here are the kitties...They are so cute!  They are really healthy and they just love Johnny.  I've never seen a kitty just lay there as a 2-year-old comes running up to it.  They let him pick them up and carry them all over

John and Fattie

Olue & Fattie

"I'm gonna getcha!"

Story Time
We are back to having 10:30 mass.  Before we had kids, 10:30 mass ment sleeping late on Sundays.  Now it means lots of extra time on Sunday mornings since little kids have no concept of sleeping in!


Johnny, Mommy, & Lu reading The Noah's Arc Book


Sunday Night Fishing
Josh was on-call for the ambulance until 6 on Sunday.  So at 6pm sharp, we left for Fish Creek Dam to go fishing with the kids.  We had a lot of fun!  Josh caught a small mouth bass and Johnny caught a little small mouth bass.  We had a more bites, but it's a litle difficult to catch all those fish when there's two adults, two poles, and two little kids...I'm sure we looked pretty comical to the family that was camping on the hill above us.
We did have one scary moment.  Josh and John were sitting in the lawn chairs fishing while I sat on the ground nursing Olue.  Josh lost his worm and got up to go behind the chairs for a new worm.  Johnny had to see what Daddy was doing, but as he tried to get down from his chair, it started to tip forward. (Kinda in slow mow.)  He fell face first on the ground really near to the ledge (a 2-3ft drop off to rocks and then the lake).  I grabbed his leg as I screamed "Oh my gosh!  Josh!" in a VERY panicked voice.  Josh came and grabbed the very scared Johnny.  He was fine.  I think he was more scared from me than from actually falling.  But we didn't sit in the lawn chairs after that.

Johnny & Daddy fishing

Johnny's first fish!!

Johnny & Daddy fishing down shore

"Johnny, do you want some juice?"  "Sure!"..."Then smile nice for Mommy!"

Josh, John, & Olue on our first family fishing trip.



Canning Season Begins!

We went to Sweet Briar Lake last night to pick chokecherries and today, Josh & John went to Chris' to pick apricots.  Tonight we had a rain storm, so Josh & I are canning juice.

Olue was first able to sit up alone last week at the cabin...Today, when I got her up from her nap, she was sitting up in her bed.  I still haven't seen her get there, but when I put her down for her nap she was on her back!  She's also scooting around on her tummy.  I think we'll have a crawler before we know it!

Our Cat, Dumbo, had kitties right before the 4th of July weekend.  They are doing great!  The other night Cedar was barking crazy and the next morning we smelled skunk and couldn't find the kitties for a couple days.  Today we found them.  I think we have a smart Momma Kitty.  She had hid them in our wood pile and brought them back to their house just in time to stay warm and dry in the Thunderstorm we had tonight.  Johnny has named three of the four kitties...Elmo, Yellow, and Benyo.  I named the fourth one...Fattie.  I just realized today that Fattie is the oddball, he's the only one who's name doesn't end in "o"...Ha Ha!)

We had Farmer's Market in New Salem today.  I brought the camera, because Josh wanted to get a picture of all the veggies after I had set them up.  There were so many cars at the Coffee House, that I had to park across the street.  I was met with a mob of ladies ready to help me unload the van.  They all had their veggies and bread picked out before, I could even get my reciept book out.  (Thus no pic:)  We had a great sale!  This was our 3rd farmers market week and we just keep making more money each time!

Johnny's been putting words together to make sentences.  He says things like "Lu Wake!" (Olue's Awake!)  "Eat Food!" and when he can't remember the name of something he calls it "Benyo".  Funny Boy!  He calls all bugs "Bumble" (for Bumble Bees...I told him this spring that he had to stay away from them so we wouldn't get stung).  Anyway...We have Crazy-Bad Mosquitoes now, and when he gets a bite that really itches, he points to it and says "Bumble Owee!"  He's so cute!

John & Lu building towers in the morning before breakfast.

Deer Scouting Trip
Last night we took a drive out to Josh's deer hunting grounds.  He didn't get a gun tag, so he plans to bow hunt.  We had a good time looking for deer and reminiscing the good ole days before we had kids and went hunting together out there all the time.  We go to all the spots we used to with the minivan.  Another reason for Josh to get that new truck...(Someday;)

Cows...Too early to see deer yet!

Storm Clouds & Butte

Weird Hanging Cloud!

Doe & 2 fawns that we watched run up the hill...They are a lot faster at it than Josh was!

Doe & 2 fawns with pretty sunset!

Johnny looking for the big buck!..."Can we go home yet?"

Railroad Bridge over The Old Red Trail.

Two Big Muley Bucks!



We found the Big Boys!

Video of the Bucks.

Tonight's Storm

We went to the basement again.  We've had so many storms this summer.  John is always sad when we have to come upstairs, because he likes playing with the "outside" toys that we store down there.  This time we just got wind and rain.  It sounded like Hebron got hit hard.  We hear the storm trackers over Josh's ambulance pager.  The Hebron firemen were talking about lots of downed trees, a downed power line that started a fire, and rain that looked like a blizzard!

John's "Blweeler Blweeler!" (4-wheeler)



We got John a "Tow Mater" 4-wheeler.  He has a blast driving it around the house and yard!