Camping

 Katie hanging out

 Libby, Ethan and Katie

 Kooper

 Haylee, Shay and Cayleb

 Zach and Kabree

 Vance, Kabree and Ethan

 Libby, Katie and Zach

 Zach cooking our tinfoil dinners

 Kabree enjoying her swimming pool

 JoAnn and Jessi

 Zach

 Shay and Haylee

 Libby and Katie

 Jessi, Kabree and Zach

 Kooper 

 Larin and Kooper

 Ethan, JoAnn, Kabree and Vance

   Kooper and Shawn blowing out his imaginary birthday candles 

    

    To start Zach's week off we went camping to Stone, my favorite camping spot of all time.  I grew up going there just about every week with my Grandpa Elmer.  We would load up 6 a.m. Monday morning and head down there for a week of fishing, tubing and water skiing.  My Grandma would always send her yummy baked beans, our favorite cereals and licorice.  We always had so much fun with Grandpa, all of my childhood memories of summer are filled with Grandpa Elmer and our trips to Stone.  Zach was skeptical of going there but after this trip he is now a firm believer.  We were scheduled to pull into my parents yard at 7:30 a.m. to pick up a load of kids, 5:45 a.m. I got a text asking if we were sure we still wanted to go it was pouring.  My heart sank, but Zach confidently said we are going rain or shine but we will push it to 8 a.m. (ok I rolled my eyes at this because what difference will 30 minutes make).  We pull into my parents house at 8:13 and load the kids stuff in the rain : (.  Zach then suggests I make the tin foil dinners now at my parents so I don't have to try making them in the rain at the camp site.  The girls and Cayleb all jumped in and helped me whip out a load of tin foil dinners.  While I'm doing this my wonderful brother Shawn and Zach decide they need to switch to his suburban because it has a bigger motor and can haul the camper/boat easier than Heather's suburban.  I roll my eyes and say "ok",  An hour and a half later they decide that maybe Heather's suburban is easier than trying to continue to get Shawn's suburban's trailer lights to work, so they have to re do the hitches again and hook back up to Heather's.  My eyes rolling and "I told you so", were on the tip of my tongue.  By now I have all the girls in Heather's suburban and all the boys in the other.  Well we switch drivers and head out, all the kids were flustered because the girls wanted to ride with me and the boys with Zach but the last minute switch landed them in opposite vehicles.

    We pull into stone and I see my favorite camp site is open and I hurry over to the camp host to make sure it's not reserved.  My luckiest day ever, it was free.  Not only did we get the best camp spot but because it rained my parents, Larin and Shawn were able to join us for the day.  So, you''re thinking ok but it's raining how fun could it be, well folks like I said my luckiest day ever come noon, the rain stopped, clouds parted and the sun was shinning.  It was perfect, we were the only campers, only boat and it was beautiful!

 Jessi and Shay

 Shay and Libby

 Ethan, Shawn and Shay

 

 Zach and Kabree with her first fish

 Kabree fishing all by herself

 Little Miss getting her life jacket on

 Libby and Katie with their big catch!

 Shawn and Ethan

 Cayleb wake boarding

 Kabree on flag duty

 Shay trying out wake boarding

Shay and Haylee

    The kids seemed to love it, they fished and tubed to their hearts content.  Even Miss Kabree enjoyed the fishing.  We let her hold the pole off the side of the dock, we didn't even have the line out, she would dip the end in and out of the water and believe it or not she caught a FISH!  She was super excited until Zach pulled it out of the water and showed her.  She caught 5 fish dipping her pole in like that, one of the times Zach was not able to save the fish and Kabree told Shawn "the fishys sleeping, see he's sleeping", ok everyone was dying laughing.  All of the kids were loving catching fish left and right, that's probably why they were able to do it so much.  That first night they fished right up until it was too dark to see any more.  On the second day Libby caught a Carp, she was so excited to catch a "huge fish".
    As you can see in some of the pictures Shawn brought my parents horse trailer down because it has a bed in the front plus he hadn't moved Eric's furniture into the new house yet so it was still in there, the kids thought that was pretty great to hang out in there.  It worked out great because Shawn and Larin ended up spending the night so they slept in the horse trailer with all the boys and Zach and I took the camper with all the girls.  The kids were great, the weather was perfect and we were the only campers the whole time we were there.  We could not have asked for a better, funner camping trip!