Success

We had more fun camping this past weekend than we could have ever imagined.

Picture this: 8 adults, 9 kids (ages 5 and under), 5 tents, 2 nights, and a million pictures . . . all right on the beach in Hawaii. How does it get much better than that? There are so many pictures (from 4 different cameras) that I don't even know where to begin, so here's just a little sample . . .

Our campsite: Our morning view:
Our evening view:
The girls: Marian, Danielle, Kathy, and Andre

The boys: Brian, Brust, and Jamie (where the heck is Patrick??)

Some (but not all) of the kids:


My kids and their sheer unadulterated joy:

Even though the wind beat us up pretty bad throughout the weekend (resulting in two broken tents, but not ours), even though we didn't get all that much sleep, and even though there WAS one trip to the emergency room (one of the kids accidentally got cut with a knife, again not ours), we all agreed that it was one of the most fun camping trips ever. Definitely some good memories, a few of which are not necessarily appropriate for discussion on a G-rated (well, at least PG-rated) blog such as this one. :) Suffice it to say, we want to do it again, SOON. The trip was definitely a success.

We were also successful in taking Zander to his first theatre movie EVER, which was a very exciting event for all of us. We strategically planned on going to a matinee (maximize his good mood and fewer people), and we have been waiting for a movie where he was already familiar with all the characters so that he was more likely to stay interested . . . so we went to see Madagascar 2 (he's only seen the first one about a hundred times). Charley is an old pro at going to the theatre, but Zander is a bit trickier since he doesn't seen to have the same TV/movie attention span that Charley does. However, with a box of popcorn, a drink, and a handful of candy, Zander was perfect for the first 90% of the time, sitting in his own chair watching the movie. The last ten minutes or so he became a little squirmy, but I just put him on my lap and he was fine. He didn't try and get up and run around and he was pretty quiet, so all in all, I would say that was a success too.

So this week has been successful in those ways . . . however, I have been very unsuccessful at tackling the other 101 things on my list. Better get started . . .