Assateague Again!

It had been years since we went to Assateague and/or Chincoteague-- I think we stopped shortly after we moved to Charlottesville and realized it was just a lot farther away now, we hadn't bothered.  But Camille had seen the pictures from those camping trips and desperately wanted to see the horses.  She was really just a baby last we went, so I guess we can't fault her for not remembering.  So we told we could go again.

It was fun taking the truck camping, instead of the van for once!  Weird advantages to only having two kids, who knew?

We left on Monday afternoon, so we had our weekly chat with Bentley while we were on the road.  We took this picture to show him how much we were missing him:

The drive went really smoothly, but we'd gotten a later start than we wanted and had to stop a few times, so it was nearly dark by the time we arrived.  But we did catch this sunset as we were searching for our campsite and Camille was literally squealing with joy seeing all the ponies right away!  (I think she was worried that we would have bad luck and just not see any horses.  Nope, they're everywhere!!!)

Then we spotted this colt and the squealing went up an octave!

So that was a perfect introduction to the island!  Then we found our campsite and discovered that it was NOT the same place that I was picturing!  Apparently in the past we'd camped in the state park, which has really great bathrooms.  But this time we were in the national park, which has drop toilets and a couple outdoor, cold-water-only showers!  Not quite what I had in mind!!!

So that was a bummer.  It was also crazy windy, which meant I was struggling with the kids to set up our tents while Craig was struggling to build a fire.  We were kind of a mess.  Plus, we had to carry everything from our car, which was parked a little ways away.  One of those distances that doesn't seem far until you're carrying everything and walking in the sand.  And then it's a HUGE pain.

By the time we'd got everything set up and a cooked our dinner, it was so late.  And chilly!!!  We were not expecting to be cold in June!  But we huddled around our picnic table enjoying our foil dinners and the gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches we'd made (at least, the ones that didn't get burned).  And then!  Suddenly a bunch of horses marched through our campsite and began gathering around us, eyeing our dinners!!!  Now-- these are ponies.  They aren't very big.  But they're still way bigger than us!  And you're not supposed to touch them, since they might kick or bite you.  So how do you protect your food???  We were clapping our hands and making noises trying to shoo the horses away, but you really just feel so stupid, knowing the other campers nearby are watching you to see what's going to happen!

As it turned out, we managed to successfully drive the horses away without them touching our dinners!  Huzzah!  But it made me nervous!

With the last of our coals, we managed to make s'mores.  Then we blew up our air mattresses (no small feat, carrying them through the wind from the truck, where our pump was, back to the tents!) and settled in to sleep.  It was still very chilly.  I pulled my hoodie over my head and hoped for even a little bit of sleep, and laughed at Craig all bundled up in his sleeping bag:

This is beach camping?  In June???

But actually, I slept pretty well!  I woke up a few times in the night to roll over, but then went right back to sleep.  It was amazing.  Maybe I should always sleep with a hoodie on?

As soon as he was awake in the morning, Craig made pancakes and sausages for everyone and then we headed over the dune to the beach! 

You could lock your cooler under the table to keep it safe from the horses

Camille and Colton pretty much played all day.  

Building sand castle condominiums

Impressive, no?

I'm not sure if this kite is supposed to be a squid or a jellyfish?  Or something else entirely...?

I spent most of the day wrapped in my towel watching them and watching all the crabs scuttling around me.  That sounds awful, but those crabs were terribly fascinating, once you started paying attention to them!  They'd pop out of those holes and hurl a bit of sand away.  Sometimes they'd come at each other, and a couple times I watched smaller crabs get dragged down into the bigger crab's holes!!!  Yikes!

Kite flying was very popular!

Eventually I was done, so I headed off to take a shower.  It was so cold.  Rinsing my hair actually gave me brain freeze-- I didn't know that was possible!!!!  But as is usually the case, it was worth it to feel clean again!  And even though I'd been kind of cold all day, getting out of the cold shower made me feel warm.  I wandered back to my tent and took a really great nap, waking up right as Craig and the kids came back.  They showered off, too, and then we drove into town for a very early dinner at some Tex Mex place.  Yum.

Colton was so sunburned.  I don't know why we can't ever manage to properly protect our kids from those UV-rays!  We try so hard!

We bought more wood so we could have another campfire and s'mores!  This time when the horses wandered through the campsites, we weren't concerned because we didn't have any food for them to grab.  But the joke was on us, because we'd forgotten about our bag of garbage and the horses snatched it, ripped it open, and dug into that bag so fast!  It was a mess, and we had no way to get the garbage away from them!  Silly horses.  I guess they got a taste of those foil dinners after all...

Garbage or no, Camille was thrilled!

Colt!

Everyone loves foil dinners, I guess...

Happy Camille!

Then the horses started, well, horsing around!  The colt was trying to jump at the other horses and they were clearly annoyed with him, and I was having visions of horses crashing into our tents and breaking everything, it was kind of stressful!  But eventually they moved on and nothing bad happened.  Phew!

Look at the big horse's eyes there!  He is NOT happy about this game!

After that we headed to bed.  Poor Colton was miserable and we were exhausted.  The wind had been blowing the entire time we'd been there, and everything inside our tent was covered in a fine layer of sand.  Gross.  But thanks to my hoodie, I slept pretty well again, even with the tent flapping and snapping in the wind!

As soon as the sun was up we threw everything into the truck and headed out.  That was enough camping for us!  We stopped at a bakery for doughnuts and then just drove and drove and drove.  There's a bridge that we crossed over the Chesapeake and the van ahead of us hit a seagull and it spun out like a helicopter going haywire-- that was wild.  That same bridge goes underground a couple times, and then second time, there was a huge cargo ship that crossed over us right as we were underground and somehow that just seemed crazy, too.

And as is always the case, it was awfully nice sleeping in my own bed again!

Hopefully that was enough horses for Camille for a bit...!

They tried to recreate Ryder's goofy shots from 2014!  😂

And Suddenly, It was Summer!

School got out on May 29th this year, which was a big change from previous years when we'd gone a week or even two into June!  We actually celebrated a bit early by having our pizza at the pool on Thursday night.  On a whim we invited the Gaskins to join us, and having Sawyer to play with made ALL my kids so much happier!  (And I got to chat with Amy, so that was fun!) (Edwin wasn't able to come; I'm sure he would have been fun, too, if he'd been there!)

This looks like summer to me!

On Friday, the boys had a temple trip (which Colton announced was a GREAT way to start off the summer) and Kendra had gone to see a friend's ballet concert, so I decided Camille and I needed to get some Coldstone to feel celebratory, and that was pretty great!

Look at her strutting out of school on her last day of 5th grade!

We had the Cramers, the Bowes, and the Huffs over to swim (not at the same time) and just generally enjoyed the freedom of not having a schedule.  Summertime is so great!!!

Camille and Peter

Gideon, Calvin, and Colton, with Truman in the foreground

Adam made us actually get out of bed on a Saturday morning (!) so we could experience the joys of the Charlottesville farmer's market.  I didn't take any pictures, but it really was so fun!  I love seeing all the produce people have grown-- biggest tomatoes EVER!  And Adam bought us scones and cookies from MarieBette, so that was pretty great!  He took me back home then, and brought Kendra, Colton, and Camille kayaking, which they loved.  Look at these great pictures he took!

Second greatest action shot ever

Love those mountains in the distance!

And Colton and Camille shoving Kendra into the water is the best action shot ever!!!  😂😂😂

So our first week of summer was just straight up chilling.  Then Kendra left to go to Outerbanks for a week of beaching it up with her friends: 

and Ryder headed to Southern Virginia University for a week of FSY with most of the other youth from our ward:

So Craig and I decided, with only two kids left at home, we might as well take Colton and Camille camping at Assateague!

Changes That are NOT Milestones!

Also at the end of May, Colton decided he needed a haircut, but this time he wanted something different.  He wanted to show up on the last day of school with his hair buzzed, and our friend Angela actually managed to fit us into her schedule perfectly to make that happen!

Colton went from this:

To this:

And just like that, I went from thinking of him as looking just like Ryder, to thinking he looks just like Bentley.  Poor Colton, either way, he's someone's twin!  (People also frequently think he and Camille are twins, probably because their names both start with "C" and I tend to have both of them with me a lot!)

I do think he looks super cute with his short hair!

One More Milestone in May

Did you think we'd had enough important stuff happening?  Because there was still one more Big Thing before May was done...  Can you guess what it was?

What if I gave you a clue:

Did you figure it out now?

Ryder got his learner's permit!!!!  Not only did he get it, he got 100% on the test!!!  We have a fifth driver in the house!

I'm actually very excited for him-- learning to drive is such an important step in growing up!  And the sooner he gets his license, the less I'll have to swing by the high school picking and dropping him off!  Everyone wins!!!

Camille's 5th Grade Promotion Ceremony

A week later we got to head over the Mountain View Elementary School (probably for the last time???) for Camille's 5th Grade Promotion Ceremony!!!  I have to say-- I have had children attending elementary school for fifteen years now.  So while it was a bittersweet moment, it also felt like it was time to close out this chapter of my life.  It's been lovely, but I'm ready to move on with my kiddos!

Because things always have to be complicated, this morning was no different.  Trying to get a seat at these events is cutthroat, so I was already planning on getting there right as the doors opened.  But then Donna really needed some insulin, so Craig dashed out to OLOP to get her some, and Ryder needed a ride to school.  So we ended up having Kendra take Tom and Donna with her while she dropped off Ryder, I arrived early to save seats, and Craig managed to rush back and get there on time, insulin on hand.  Phew!  We even had a few minutes to give Donna her injection before the ceremony started!  

It began with several kids-- including Camille!-- playing "Pomp & Circumstance" on recorders and xylophones!  And they actually sounded quite good!

I actually really liked the principal's speech, where he talked about how trees grow better when they experience diversity and how this class began kindergarten during the pandemic but were thriving in spite of that.  It was quite lovely.

Getting to shake hands with Ms. Short, and her other teacher, Ms. Paxton (Theo and Quinn's mom!) is on the far right

This one is blurry, but you can see her great smile!

After they all got their certificates, they sang "Because I Knew You" from Wicked

And then we had to take pictures of course!

Ms. Isaacs was Camille's 3rd grade teacher, who moved to Colorado after that school year and promised to come see her kids "graduate" from 5th grade-- and she actually came!!!  

Ms. Short

And Ms. Paxton!

Trying to be taller than BFF Mara

Almost as tall as Grandma, too!

Once we'd gotten our fill of pictures, we got breakfast at Tip Top Diner-- it was a very fun and happy day!  Next stop for this cute little girl: middle school!!!