Last Summer Break Camping Trip

One Last Summer Vacation Camping Trip

Kelly said, let's go camping one last time before summer break is over.  That is about all it takes for me to want to go.  I had been doing professional development at school the week before and after all those meetings, I was ready to head out!  We booked a spot at Sam A. Baker (old tried and true). 

Before we left I whipped up a new camping recipe...Stickless kabobs.  It's all the Kabob goodies wrapped in foil.  In hindsight, I put too much in there, just one of these fed both Kelly and me. 

When we pull into the park and I get the water tank filled and back into our spot, I literally sigh and all the stress disappears.  Everyone was so happy to be back.  As soon as we park the boys are off on their bikes.  It is a little hot out so they got all nice and sweaty!

Even Winston likes it now!

Goofballs!

Cookin' up Campfire Kabobs!  I really like them.  Kelly would rather have regular Kabobs.

A little fire dancing!

We woke up bright and early the next morning.  There were a lot of programs at the park that weekend and we were going to try and get the boys their first Missouri State Parks Explorer stars. 

Paxton loves to be first and ask questions the whole time.

Climbing the rocks

Showing off their cool rock finds

Gotta get some learnin' in!

We went back to camp for some late breakfast and then back to the Visitor's Center for a bead craft thing.  I didn't get any pictures of this, but I think Kelly liked it even more than the kids!

Camden was the Clue Champion!

Welcome to Loserville!

Creatures of the Night Presentation!

Everyone slept like a baby that night.  It was a day full of bike riding, hiking, swimming, presentations, and activities.  One more activity at the Visitor's center before we leave on Sunday.  Fill the Bill, all about how a bird's beak is designed to handle what they choose to eat (fish, seeds, nectar, etc.)

The boys had an opportunity to identify some of Missouri's wildlife to earn their identification credit.

Happy boys holding their stars.  Hopefully, these are just the first of many to come!  We love our state parks.  All of these great activities are funded through Missouri's Soil and Water Tax:

 (click here to find out more)  If you don't get outdoors often (or even if you do), you should make a visit to your local state park and see all the great things they are doing and take advantage of all their programs, free of charge.  We are believers and I will always vote to fund our state parks!

Summer Projects 2018

Summer Projects

The reason I have been off-the-radar

This summer has been one of the most DIY projecty (word?) that I have ever been.  I usually pick one big DIY thing to do during the summer and this year I took on some big projects.  There are so many things that come along with owning a house.  We chose to buy a bigger but older house, but along with that comes lots of fixing up that needs to happen.  This summer I took on redoing our cabinets, paint-fest in the master suite and sitting room, and bought and installed a swimming pool (with major help from Dad and Mom).

Let's start with the kitchen cabinets.  Kelly said she wanted this done and I thought she was crazy.  The dark cabinets we had didn't show any dirt at all (which I was a fan of).  In hindsight she was right.  Painting them made the whole kitchen look brighter and much BIGGER!  I thought that I would start and finish these in a week.  Well, that was WAY OFF.  I started about a week and a half before we left for vacation.  It took about two weeks after we got back to get it all finished.  This was much more of an undertaking than I originally thought.  

The original dark brown.

The priming process.

As this whole thing began to drag on longer and longer, I took less and less progress photos.

Final product sans Kelly's kitchen decorations.

Painting the Master suite and sitting room was a wild hair that I got one day.  It started with painting the bathroom and then I decided that while I had all the painting stuff out I would go ahead and paint the wood wall that was in there.  I had to fill all the cracks between the boards, sand them down, and paint them.  I must say I feel like I made the right decision.  I am always leery about painting brick and wood because once you commit you can't go back.  It turned out just fine though.  It is a lot more contemporary look.  

I forgot to take before pictures, so these are pictures of the bathroom before we moved in. 

...and post paint-fest

And the bedroom and sitting room, once again not good at taking before pictures.

I also turned this ugly closet into a mudroom for all our stuff.

I've been thinking about that closet conversion ever since we moved in.  

I also painted the guest bathroom from yellow to classic Huffman Gray.

Last but not least, the pool.  We had planned on putting in a pool in a few years, but Kelly really wanted to fast-track that.  After seeing the prices of new ones and tapping into my dad's expertise in pools, we decided to buy one off Sell-it-Semo.  We found a steal and snagged it up!  My dad and mom offered to help me move it and put it up.  Dad also has a backhoe so he brought that up to do the dirt work.

Right away we found a MONSTER cedar stump just under the surface.  We had to dig down like 12ft to get it out.

Leveled out and laying out the framework.  I borrowed Grandpa's tillers to tear up the dirt a little so it would dry up. 

A little late night retaining wall building.  That was a really long day and I was beat after I built this. 

Big Helper!

Walls are up! 

My mom is a very hard worker!

Finally...Water!

The Inaugural Swim!

That is how I spent my summer.  I did some outside stuff like clearing up bushes and small trees, but I didn't take pictures of those.  I am going to have to sow some grass this fall after all the outside stuff I did.  The work for a homeowner is never done.  I get tired of doing these things, but I can't sit still for too long and need to keep me busy.  This spring I know we need to deck around the pool, I am not looking forward to that.  Haha!