High Adventure

The following week, my middle three kids all had high adventure!  For the boys, this meant a three-day trip canoeing down the James River.  Neither Craig nor I had anything to do with this, but the pictures (which I'll share below) looked like they had a great time!  And for Kendra, this meant an overnighter that they ended with a float down the James!  The YW leadership had a bit of a problem where one of their leaders suddenly realized she needed to leave early, so they asked if I could come along for the float, which I agreed to do.  Then they figured out that leader needed to leave even earlier than they thought, and they asked if I could get there first thing in the morning.  That felt like a bait and switch, but I didn't really feel like I could say no.  So I had to be at a Richmond camp site an hour away from me at 7am on a Saturday.  Lame.  I rolled out of bed super early and drove there, helped make breakfast, urged the girls to take down their tents and get packed up, and get outta there.  We were supposed to go hiking, but the girls were slow and we ran out of time for that.  (It was very hot, I was not sad to skip the hike, and neither were the girls.)

We moved to the put-in location and I got the girls to get their tubes all inflated and eventually we got in the river and proceeded with our float!  I did this a few years before for my friend Josephine's birthday.  That time, the river water was very low, so it was moving incredibly slowly.  I remember really enjoying the first couple of hours, and then getting more and more miserable the longer it went on-- five hours total!  By the end I was bored, exhausted and so sunburned.  This wasn't a whole lot better, but at least we put in further down on the river, so I think it ended up taking three hours?  Maybe more.  I don't know.  I also was much better about wearing my sun hat, rash guard, and reapplying sunscreen, so I did NOT burn.  And it was at least relaxing enough that I fell asleep for a few minutes, which was pretty great.  Right at the end, it suddenly started pouring on us, so Kendra and I hurried to the landing site, where Wendy was there to meet us with my van.  (Which Amy had thought we wouldn't need, but I was smart and ignored her on that count.)  

That was when I realized that the van was full with the girls' stuff, so there was nowhere to put the innertubes!  The rest of the girls were still floating down the river, so I told Kendra we'd be back as soon as we could, and Wendy and I drove back to where she'd left her car and retrieved that.  The girls, meanwhile, were having a blast splashing each other under the bridge.  I had a hard time getting them OUT of the river!  But I'm glad they had fun!

It was a long day, and I didn't take any pictures.  Amy took this fabulous picture of me right before I realized she was doing it:

I swear I was having more fun than it looks like here!

A few of the girls wading-- the river was so shallow!

And here are pictures from the boys' trip!

On the bus heading to their start out spot

Ryder and Gideon sharing a canoe

Colton and Calvin sharing one, with Cedric in a kayak behind them

Yup, definitely having fun together!

And they got pizza right before coming home!

Meanwhile, we had Jason visiting, so we decided to have a Smith temple trip all together!

And that was lovely, of course!

4th of July 🇺🇸

We got back from Branson and had a couple days to recover, and then I got to do a cool thing on the 4th of July...!  Every year on Independence Day, they swear in new citizens at a naturalization ceremony at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello!  I've always wanted to go, but it's usually so hot, and I don't actually know how to go about getting tickets, so I've never bothered before.  But this year, my choir was singing at it, so I got to go AND I got to park up on the mountain rather than having to use the shuttle!  WIN!

Unfortunately, it was still insanely hot, and they had us seated in the very very back of the tent, so I couldn't really hear much (although I did catch some of what was sort of like testimony meeting for any of the new citizens who wanted to talk about their experience, and that was very moving!).  So it wasn't ideal.  But I was still glad that I got the chance to be there!  Go, America!!!

First time I think we've ever been allowed to wear open-toed shoes with no socks or hose.  Which should tell you just how hot it was!!!

Check out my red and blue accessories!

We got up and sang three separate times.  The middle set, we had to cut short because the governor was there and decided to go off-script and shake all the new citizens' hands.  I guess politicians gotta politick.  I also ran into my friend Raptor from FIA, who I hadn't seen in several years, so I was very excited to catch up with her!  (And I was even more excited to learn that she'd had the baby she had been desperately hoping for!)

Overall, it was a cool experience. But I sure was happy to take a cold shower afterwards!!! (And a nap. I think we met at the carpool location at 6:30am???  For the summertime, this is INSANE!!!)

We were supposed to go to the pool and grill with our neighbors in the afternoon, but then it just poured all afternoon so that didn't happen.  (That was not really a bad thing, since it was the beginning of the end of our drought!)  It cleared up enough for the fireworks show around 9pm, and then we did sparklers in our driveway and stayed up way too late to watch Trump's speech (which was hilarious) and the crazy fireworks in DC on the television.  A very late night, but a very patriotic day for everyone! 

Final Branson Post

After all that, we finally headed home Tuesday!  It's a fifteen hour drive from Charlottesville to Branson, so splitting it up makes perfect sense.  But I know myself, and when all is said and done, I just want to get. home.  (And I really don't want to shell out money to try and get all the kids settled down in a very crowded hotel room when a few more hours of driving could have gotten us home to our individual bedrooms!)  So we decided to get out the door as quickly as we could and just make the drive in one day.  We left around 7:30am (packing to return home is always so much faster than packing to leave home!) and just drove and drove and drove.  We listened to Nate Bargatze's book, Big Dumb Eyes.  We listened to a lot of Taylor Swift.  We got lunch at Subway and ate in the car.  No one could think of any fast food that they wanted to eat for dinner so we just didn't bother.  And we rolled into our house just a little after midnight.  And it was soooooo nice to be home!

The crazy thing was that I hadn't realized until that week that I was hosting book club the next night (technically the same day?) so we spent Wednesday getting unpacked and the house all put back together.  I even managed to make a dessert for my people!  I will admit-- I did *kind* of feel like super Mom for that!

Anyhoo.  Tracy created a shared album for us which I've been stealing from for all these blog posts, but as is often the case, I keep finding pictures that I missed, so I'm just adding them all here finally.  Enjoy!!!

Kendra, Ryder, Adam and Tracy in their pod getting ready to go up to the top of the St. Louis Arch

At the Arch Museum

Waiting our turn for the elevators

SIX SEVEN!!!!

Signage in the boys' room

Not sure what's happening here, but it looks exciting!

In a major break from tradition, the Bentleys decide to spend time standing around NEXT to the kitchen, instead of inside it!

Cora, Claire, Hazel, Harper, and Hunter meet the horses at Stampede!

More cousin rough housing!

Claire fixing London's hair in the girls' room

Natalie was so excited to see this skunk that she took pictures (and accidentally chased it towards Camille, who ran away FAST) rather than running away like any sane person would do!!!

The Aveytuas stopped at Ted Drewes' on their way home-- I'm so glad they finally got some frozen custard!!!

Ryder was very excited to play poker with everyone!  (Nice hand, Colton, as he tries to keep a straight face!)

Colton puts up with a lot of love from Clayton...

Craig noticed this while we were eating lunch-- perfection!

Silver Dollar City

Monday morning we said goodbye to the Aveytuas (😢) and then the rest of us headed to the amusement park in Branson, Silver Dollar City.  It was HOT and humid, but we had a fun time anyway.  No one got lost (a feat I don't think we could have pulled off if we'd had the Aveytuas still with us!) and I don't think anyone got sunburned, so that's about as successful as it gets!

Covered in sunscreen and waiting for the ropes to drop!  Adam is wearing Clayton's Pokemon sunglasses that were accidentally left behind! 😂

Before anyone rode the water rides!  Look how nice they all look!

All ready for the stunt man show (I'm not sure if I'm that sweaty or that covered in sunscreen...  Probably both...)

And enjoying some air conditioning before the circus show begins!

Lunchtime!

The beginning of what turned out to be the worst train ride ever!  (Mostly because the seats were terribly uncomfortable (it's like they said, how can we make a wooden bench awful?) and then they stopped for about ten minutes for some little "oh no, we're being robbed" skit that mostly involved these old, overweight men giving all the kids on the train high fives while we baked in the sun!  WHY.)

Very wet Camille-- I think this is right after the Huckleberry Finn ride where everyone got to shoot water cannons at each other

Everyone (understandably) wanted a picture with the giant axe!

Cora was happy to ride anything that she was tall enough for!

Aunt Natalie bought a whole bunch of giant cookies which were quickly devoured

Trying to dry off after the river rafting ride!

This whole train is filled with my family!

They got so wet on this ride!

My gun didn't actually work, so I put it down and just enjoyed the ride.  Colton looks tough, though!

Speaking of tough...

Natalie took pictures of all of us on the log ride so she wouldn't have to ride and get wet herself!

Waiting in line together, we found some shade!

Here's the Huckleberry Finn ride!

Seriously, the guns were such a big hit!  Who knew we were so violent???

Gotta appreciate the kids photobombing us in the back!  

We got pretty wet from the log ride,  too!

It was a fun day, but I wasn't too sad when the park closed and we could head to Chick-fil-A to get some dinner.  Washing my hands in the bathroom there felt so good.  And showering once we were home felt even better!