Family Camping 2013!

Thursday morning marked the beginning of O'Brien Family Camp 2013!!  We loaded up early and were on the road to Lake Shetek, Minnesota. By mid afternoon the girls were playing with Hailie and Connor and we were eating and playing and snacking and chatting and grazing....

We had the best time. Maggie and Gracie love having Hailie and Connor to play with. They all get along so well. The girls are both really missing them now that we're home.

Maggie made 2 trips to the lake to fish. The first time she said, "fishing is kind of boring." Duh! When I got there to check on them Arnie, Paul and Mark were all untangling and fixing fishing poles, it seemed something was always caught or broken. I think I'd rather just relax and look at the water. Her second fishing trip was a bit more exciting...

...she didn't want to touch the fish, but she was really excited to tell us all about it when she got back to camp.

For Maggie's Birthday, Hailie and Connor got her a new game. The object is to make the dog poop, it's totally disgusting, but the kids laughed SO hard while they played it, we had to love it!

Maggie had Arnie take her training wheels off a few times and she worked on riding
without them. She did pretty well.

Poor Elsie had a lot of big kids "helping" her with everything!

 

One day all the kids had lunch in Mom and Dad's camper and watched a movie. I went to check on them after awhile and Maggie was doing the dishes. (she can hardly reach the sink.) When I asked what she was doing she said she didn't want to leave all those dirty dishes for Grandma so she was cleaning up. I noticed there wasn't a dish towel and asked how she dried them and she said "I couldn't find a towel, so I just grabbed my blanket and dried them off." :) Bless her heart, she was SO proud of herself. She came out beaming to tell Grandma what she'd done.

One night Uncle Mike filled a giant bowl with shaving cream and gave it to the kids. Gracie wanted NOTHING to do with it, but the big kids had a blast!

COUSINS!!!

Oh Gracie!

Sunday night the kids wanted to have a sleepover together before we headed home. Connor was asleep about 5 minutes after I took this pictures. Gracie was mad because I actually made her go to bed (because she wasn't about to let the other kids lay down and watch the movie), and Maggie & Hailie stayed awake until after midnight watching a movie. We had tired kids the next morning but they had a great time.

Now were home, the camper is mostly cleaned out and we're getting back into the swing of things. I'm very thankful that everyone could make time to be there and that we all enjoy each other so much. We had 5 days filled with memories my kids and I will cherish forever.

Time to implement the post camping diet (have I mentioned we ate, pretty much constantly!) I can't wait to do it again next year!