All about Ashlyn: Father's Day Sand Camp

How is everyone enjoying the beautiful weather??? We are loving it at the McGrath House! Ashlyn loves to help water the flowers, especially in the front, because she gets to run around on the sidewalk. We have some strawberry plants in the front and she loves to pick them and eat them. They went pretty quick this year!

We have continued the yard work extravaganza. We mulched the whole front yard and it is amazing what a difference it makes! I told Jered we've got curb-appeal and its time to put it on the market :) We still have to find a spare weekend to do the back yard, but its looking pretty spiffy!

Father's Day weekend we did our annual Kacalek camping trip. This year we went to Florence and camped at Siltcoos Sand Camp. I've never camped in the sand and I think it was actually less messy than camping in typical campground sites. We borrowed the quads from my mom and Ed and we had a blast! We were a small group this year. Just Uncle Jim, Zach, Leslie, Nolan, and us.

Jered's cousin Zach was there with his son, Nolan. Nolan is just two months older than Ashlyn and they always have the best time together. Nolan was pretty anxious for us to arrive on Friday morning. He kept asking "when is my friend going to get here? when is my friend to get here?" He called Ashlyn "my friend" all weekend. Those two hit the ground running as soon as we made it to camp. They enjoyed the little bit of freedom they had and were constantly pushing the boundaries. We were the only ones camping on Friday so we let them roam a little further than we normally would. They climbed and played all over the quads, they pretended the quad trailers were pirate ships, they pretended the sand was fairy dust. They "wrestled" in the sand and didn't seem to mind a bit that they had sand in every crack and crevice. They got to eat a lot of sweets and treats, watch movies in Uncle Jim's trailer and stay up super late.

Uncle Jim brought a 3-wheeler, it was our camp bike, and they loved getting rides around camp on it. Uncle Jim had also brought a swing that he looped over a tree and they were constantly on that thing. They only got in a couple of fights over it and we just let them work it out. I think they both probably learned a thing or two from each other that weekend. Some good, some not so good! :)

At one point they were on a walk-about in some tall grass and trees and we heard Nolan say, "Lets go over here and look for monsters." Ashlyn said a little timidly, "ok, but if we find any are you going to take care of me?" Nolan said with all confidence, "Yep I'll take care of you!" Luckily, no monsters were found.

We had a blast riding the quads! But our first trip Friday morning was a dismal failure. I was pretty nervous and so was cousin Leslie. I've never ridden on the dunes and climbing the steep ones really freaked me out. So of course they take us up a steep hill the first day! I was following Leslie and Jered was following me. Leslie went up and turned a little to the left, I thought that looked good because it looked flatter to the left so I followed her. She got stuck in the sand, I stopped my bike and it died, Jered was behind us and almost made it to the top when he realized we were stuck, so he stopped and got stuck. Total train wreck! My bike wouldn't start again, like nothing, no turn over at all. We stood around for a few minutes twiddling our thumbs and then Jered and Uncle Jim decided to tow my bike back to camp. He came back without Jered, Jered stayed in camp trying to get my bike going. So now we're on top of the hill and we decide to go for a little short ride. I've got Jered's bike and Ashlyn on the back. Ugh, I was not confident enough for that. Made me super nervous. I climbed no more hills and just tooled around a little on the flats. We headed back pretty quickly because Leslie kept getting stuck. I tried to act cool, but it was not a fun first trip out. Ashlyn loved it though!

We hung around camp, ate some lunch, etc. A while later, the guys start talking about going riding again. I looked at Leslie, she looked at me and she said "Yeah, I'm just gonna stay in camp." I quickly agreed with her, "Yep me too!" :) The kids were playing in our tent so we let the guys sneak off before either of them wanted to tag along. We thought they would be mad but they just both poked their heads out of the tent for a minute and went back to whatever it was they were doing. The guys were gone for quite a while and when they came back Zach was dripping wet and Jered was clutching his shoulder. I think all three of them were glad they got to have a guys ride even if they did come back with war wounds!

On Sat a friend of Zach's came over with his wife and 6 yr old son. They had one of those bigger 4-seater things they wanted to try out in the sand so we made another trip out. This time Jered took me up the side of that first hill and I was able to make it because it was not quite as steep. We headed out for the beach and when we go there the kids wanted to put their feet in. Before we knew it their boots were wet so off came the boots and pants. Nolan and Ashlyn were running around in their sweatshirts and underwear. It wasn't long before the sweatshirts were soaked as well, but you should have seen the two of them running and screaming and laughing and jumping in the water. They had so much fun and neither one of them seemed to mind having to wear their wet clothes back to camp.

We took another ride later in the afternoon and this time I was a little bit braver. We rode around for a while then Uncle Jim wanted to show us a spot where you could see for miles and had excellent of the sunset. The only problem, it was up a steep hill. Steeper than the other hill I was afraid of. So Jered went up it twice, once fast and once slow. Ugh, I was not excited but he said I would make it and it was flat on top. So I pushed the throttle in all the way and just went for it! I didn't let up on that throttle till I was at the top. Whew!! It was exhilarating and Uncle Jim was right, the view was incredible.

All in all a very successful weekend!

We dropped Ashlyn yesterday morning with my mom. I was sad, but I know she'll have a great time.It worked perfectly that next week is VBS. My Aunt Jean and my cousin Kourtney are going to help out by dropping her off and picking her up from VBS. Aunt Jean will have some of her grandkids and they're all within a few years of Ashlyn so I know the kids are going to have a blast. Mom (me) is going have fun as well but I know I'm going to miss her like crazy! Jered has started calling it our "Singles Week!" We've already made plans with some friends to see a concert at Edgefield Tues night. There's an awesome restaurant/bar close to our house called Fireside Grill that's adults only so we'll definitely be hitting up that. We're going to enjoy our time together but miss our kiddo like crazy at the same time.

Here's a few pics of V's wedding and Sand Camp: