The end of summer

Ava and Nate filled up their lunch boxes and held a picnic in our backyard one day. I love the way these two play together. They could easily survive without a television or computer, they'd just keep each other busy as they do most of the day anyway.

We purchased a piano. Brenna and Ava have started piano lessons and are loving it so far. The noise level in our house has increased dramatically with a piano around, but I'm getting used to it!

And for our last hurrah before the start of school (tomorrow morning, yikes!) we took a camping trip to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks.

Thursday, Day 1: set up camp. Build a fire. Make everyone's favorite camping meal, foil dinners and s'mores. Explore, then try to get everyone to bed. Fail at that, give up and gather back around the campfire to sing camp songs and look at the stars. Get the kids good and tired and listen while Scott attempts to put the older three to bed. Stay at fire with Gwen who finally passes out snuggled into me while staring at the hot coals. Climb into the tent to sleep with a toddler on my chest. Wake up in the middle of the night to a disoriented and crying Gwen, stand up to rock and soothe her. Be duly horrified when Nate wakes up as well and insists that mom holds him, although mom is already occupied. Try desperately to calm down screaming 3 year old, but finally give up and let Scott take him to the car to muffle the screaming. Get toddler back to sleep and lay back down. Listen as Scott and Nate eventually sneak back in and sleep the rest of the night until our usual 6 a.m. wake up call from the little people.

Friday, Day 2: Explore the wonders of Kings Canyon, starting first with a trail "hike". Here the kids are in front of a huge Sequoia tree that fell over and was hollowed out by fire. It was like a cave.

The parks have a "junior ranger" program where the kids can complete a booklet that helps them learn more about the park. They had to find Sequoia cones, a tree that had fallen down, pine needles, a bird, etc and check everything off the list as they saw it. The girls had a blast filling out their booklets and were thrilled to receive their ranger badges by the end of the day. Here Ava pauses inside the hollow tree to check off something else she has found.

Gwen and I on the other side of the tree.

Scott and the kids in front of General Grant tree, the third largest tree in the world. I don't know how they decide which of these is second, third, etc. They are all so huge, they look almost the same in all their immensity.

We got ice cream at the little grocery store at Grant Grove Village and enjoyed it on the porch.

End the day with fajita quesadillas over the fire and foil baked apples, followed by more stargazing around the fire. Thankfully we had much greater success getting the kids to go to sleep and stay asleep all night. I'm sure the entire campground rejoiced.

Day 3: Scott and I worked on getting camp packed up while the kids amused themselves. Here are Nate and Ava together once again.

In front of the campfire.

We took a stunning drive down the Generals highway from King's Canyon to Sequoia and hiked to the General Sherman tree, largest in the world. Unfortunately I destroyed my camera lens and was unable to get a picture from anything other than my iPhone. I did have my zoom lens with me, but when you're trying to get a photo of the largest darn tree on earth a zoom lens is not exactly in order. But it was huge, the area was gorgeous. I was thoroughly impressed and fully intend to return and explore it further.

So now we say goodbye to summer vacation and begin another school year. I'll be posting pictures tomorrow, I am sure.