Camp & Zoo

Last week my friend, Lauri, and I took the kids up to our camp in the Adirondacks for our annual Water Safari excursion.  This was probably the 6th or 7th year in a row that we've done this and the kids always look forward to it.  

Slava's first ever jaw breaker!

 One of the highlights of the trip into Old Forge is a visit to the Candy Cottage.  

Kids playing card games by the lake.

The big kids and Paul Bunyan!

We take one of these pics every year.

 The Adirondacks in mid-August is a big chilly.  We planned to go to Water Safari on Friday but it rained.  That turned into a huge blessing for me.  Since Wayne and Dennis came up Friday night they were on hand Saturday.  The weather was partly cloudy and a sweltering 69 degrees...perfect weather for a water park day!  It was too cold for the little boys (Jordan & Slava don't have much meat on their bones), so Wayne and Dennis took them along to the Woodsmen's Field Days event.  The little boys loved all the wood-cutting, log splitting, lumber jack stuff...

 ...and I enjoyed Water Safari.  Well, I enjoyed sitting in this here lawn chair for 5 hours straight.  I only got up to get my lunch and go to the ladies room.  I plowed through 2 home schooling magazines.  It was my first real vacation all summer.
The Andersons and Wayne left for home Sunday night.  The kids and I stayed until Monday morning so we could go to the Utica Zoo on the way home.

The lion made me a bit nervous!

 We visited the zoo...we are not the zoo!

Slava enjoying his cheeseburger.

Originally I'd planned to stay up at camp the whole week, but after 5 days at Cherry Plains a couple weeks ago and 5 days in the Adirondacks, I'd had enough.  The kids were happy to come home though.  Andrii got back to his job, Sierra started training for her new job at her uncle's laundromat, and even Anna had a baby-sitting job this week.  I've been busy running kids everywhere and trying to get our school room ready.  Sierra started online college courses on Monday.  She's dual-enrolled at Liberty  University for a couple courses and the rest she's doing at home for 11th grade.  All this talk about school makes we realize that summer is almost over!