Today there is camera charging... decided for each of the kiddos to have their own... they will be taking pictures daily and journaling along the trip... had to do a little bribing on the journaling part..(no journaling = no souvenirs)

Walker and I got our National Park books ready... me a John Muir journal about Yosemite and Walker a book for almost all the places we will be visiting...

There is lots of packing... and repacking going on today... some how all of this will need to fit in bags!

We are all very excited for our adventure. I'll be blogging along the way when internet is available... so stay tuned.

We headed to the library to register for the summer reading program and were met with this...

We are really hoping that the only time we get this close to a bear it will be stuffed...

The program was called safari sensory and it encouraged you to actually touch the animals... how cool is that? Here are a few favorites...

The kiddos were a bit freaked... they kept saying, "I think that they are going to come alive and eat us!"

We loved it so much that we went back later after Stewart was off work to show him all the animals.

I've been doing a lot of this lately...

I've been trying to get most of the rhubarb picked and into jam before we head on the trip... so far I've got 20 jars made... will be tasty this winter.

Hard to believe that today is the last day of yet another school year! It seems like each year goes by a little bit faster. Big kids now... that's what we have.

Today we went to the Field of Heroes... it is a physical representation of all the people who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan... over all there are more than 5,000 crosses... which is 600 more than last year.

It's an overwhelming sight to see...

We walked the entire length... reading names as we walked..

There was lots of thinking... talking to the kiddos about what it all meant... and remembering.

I'm finally getting a chance to edit pictures from Arches and the Canyonlands National Parks... this trip happened way back in March!!

I found this beauty... and am proud to say, "I took this!!"

I love... love finding natural frames and texture in nature! Here are a few more favorites... they aren't as good as this one but loved as well.

Back to the rest of the 500 photos from the trip.

Just like that he's 7 years old...

At our house it seems to be the trend to have Birthday week instead of just a BirthDAY. We started off the birthdayness with a party at OuterLimits with friends... we ended up having 18 kiddos show up...

It was a sweaty good time...

It was 2 hours of pizza, pop, playing, games and of course cake... his was a little tricky this year with out his theme stuff of Tron readily available, he loved it though.

I decided cupcakes would be easier to hand out then cutting a cake at the party...

There were presents... and presents... oh my we can officially open up our own Lego store. On Tuesday we celebrated the actual day with more cupcakes to school... just sprinkles this time and a Birthday dinner to Pizza Pie Cafe... where you can get pizza... salad... pasta and Walker's favorite dessert pizza. He packed away 2 pepperoni slices and 4 dessert slices... raspberry, oreo, lemon and cookie dough...

The rest of the week has been filled with Lego building and Tron role playing...

She's been waiting and waiting to have this done to her hair... and finally on Friday she got tinsel put in.

Here she is getting it tied in... she picked out 2 colors... purple and gold.

Cute girl with her new summer do and bling!

Walker's begun the countdown to his Birthday party on Saturday... at first it was just going to be a "boys only" party and then last minute he wanted to invite the entire class... so 28 of these went out last week...

The sunshine on the playground and time in the sandbox the past couple of days has been thoroughly enjoyed... giving Walker and I some extra pinkness...