This and That

I didn't get many pictures from our camping trip the first week of June. I suppose the rain put a damper on my yen for photography. But by Sunday when we were returning home the sun had come out. We stopped by Blackwater Falls State Park in West Virginia and hiked down the trail to see the water. Actually, we heard it long before we could see it! The two days of rain we had endured blessed us with a river running at high capacity. We overheard a lady say she hadn't seen the falls this big in a long time.

"and His voice (was) as the sound of many waters." Revelation 1:15

"And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, "Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns!" Revelation 19:6



Last week Sharon's parents came up for 4 1/2 days. We so enjoyed having them here. On Friday they gave Sharon a break by taking the oldest 3 out on an adventure. The highlight of the trip was visiting (not the hospital!) but the Wolfgang Candy factory tour. Jacob didn't want to wear the funny hat at first but he gave in and enjoyed himself. Sharon's dad said that they run a metal detector over all the finished boxes to make sure no machinery has come loose in the process. (Talk about a chocolate covered nut!)

On Saturday I took the family out for a driving tour with a couple of stops planned. God had planned a massive rainstorm instead. We did get in one stop before it poured. About 10 minutes from us is an old grist mill that still works. The kids weren't much on the historical part, but they liked seeing the water wheel turn. Before leaving we went up to the 3rd story where the grain used to be stored and I got a picture of them (Sharon was at home with the napping ones.)

Speaking of napping ones. . .

See what happens when mom goes out for an errand? I know, I know, "he'll sleep in the jumpy chair, but he won't sleep as long as he would in his crib." But he's so precious sleeping like that.

Back in March I took Lydia to see Little Women. I had procrastinated on a Papa and Jacob special trip, but he has been asking, so in light of everything lately, I took action. We drive by a mini golf place on the way home from church, and he often says he wants to go there. So today we went. I had debated going out to a lake and renting a boat, but this is where he had said he wanted to go, so that settled it. Here we are just getting ready to go golfing.

(he was smiling, just not at the moment I took the picture. . .)

He had to work at it a while to get the ball up the little ramp, but when he did, it went in the middle hole and right into the cup!

Golfing inside the pirate cave. He was worried his ball would roll into the water on the left and go over the waterfall.

This golf place has a pirate theme with waterfalls, caves, and a pirate ship. One hole is even on the ship.

The 18th hole. When your ball falls into the cup here, it rolls down a pipe into the well. At the end of the day they take the cover off and pull up the bucket with golf balls. I told him to hold up his club like it was a sword.

It was pretty warm in the sun, and I think a 9 hole course would have been perfect for him. By hole 10 he was "getting tired." Not physically, I think, but bored and hot. When we got ready to leave, he asked, "Is this all we do here?" I think the waterfalls and pirate ship looked like there should have been more fun involved. So we stopped at Wawa and got some drinks. Any size up to 32oz was 99c, so I figured I'd get a big one for him and drink what he couldn't. Who would think that a 6 year old could drink a quart of cherry Coke? (I did drink some, but he complained about that.) We had a coupon for a free small fry at Burger King. He wanted ketchup and the best I could find was to pump it out onto a drink cup lid. Put a plastic drink cup lid full of ketchup on top of a pair of soccer shorts and you have a recipe for disaster--or at least for tomato paste all over the front seat, as it turned out! We tried to find something else to do for fun. We drove by Strasburg and saw the trains, but everything closed up at 5. But then he wanted to know how much longer till we were home. Before we pulled in the driveway I asked if he had had a good time. He said, "I got to go with you and we got to do some fun things." That's all I needed to hear! (By the way, we had bought some gumballs that look like baseballs--that's the white wad you see in the corner of his mouth--not a massive tooth!)