A Campfire

It's been great to use Sam's firepit for fires in our backyard this summer, but it's still not quite the same as going up the canyon! I was hoping we'd be able to find a time the whole family could go have a campfire, but that's a difficult feat these days. We finally figured out that if most of us went up the canyon on the afternoon of Labor Day, and then Abe joined us in the other car after work and then Seb took that other car BACK to work…there would be about 40 minutes where we could all be there together. Okay, done! We packed dinner and camp chairs and headed out, hoping it wouldn't be too crowded. Luckily, there was one picnic site left!

Wood-chopper

Bouquet-maker

Zig offers me…something.

This was Clementine's first time in the canyon or…pretty much anywhere. She seems quite impressed, doesn't she?

Ted and Zig explored, and did NOT fall in the river.

The face of an angel! Gus was toddling around carrying a paper cup, and then shoving it upside down into the cupholder on my chair. The cup was a little too wide for the cupholder, so it would get stuck, and then Gus would yank on it trying to get it out for a few minutes, and then YELL in frustration and annoyance. This sequence repeated itself about fifty times throughout the evening. A few minutes after I took this picture, I was saying to this angel-face in exasperation "Gaaa! Stop DOING that!"

Clementine enjoying the sunflowers

Teddy looking wistful

Here is Gus in the act of snatching a graham cracker out of Sebastian's hand. Greedy!

And now with an entire marshmallow stuffed into his mouth!

And now at it again with that cup! *Sigh.*

There were so many wild sunflowers!

Marigold picked grasses and sunflowers and then decorated our picnic site with them. She spent so long and took such joy in making everything beautiful. It was darling.

Malachi brought his hammock and then all the other children were sad they didn't bring THEIR hammocks.

But the rest of them had fun exploring. The girls dimly remembered the little "home" they made in this same spot once, and were happy to find it again.

Remember how I was saying smugly that the little boys didn't even fall in the water? Well…apparently they are not the only ones I have to be concerned about. Don't worry, though, it was only Junie's feet.

We roasted hot dogs.

(But not this little hot dog.)

And made these little tomato-cheese-basil bites with cherry tomatoes from my Mom's garden. Yum!

Why is that when kids have the stickiest hands, that's when they most want to touch their hair? And to give you hugs and touch YOUR hair?

Ziggy QUITE enjoyed his s'mores.

Everybody wanted to be the one holding Clementine.

Abe was reading "The Way of Kings" (or one of its sequels) and could hardly put it down, even to cook his hot dog. It's the first book in a 10-book series (!!), of which each book is 1000+ pages (!!), and the series still isn't finished and won't be for…oh, twenty years or something, according to the author. I never would have started such a thing (what if I die before it's written? What if Brandon Sanderson dies? Life is too uncertain to be in the middle of a ten-book series…) but Abe read the first book and said it was his favorite book ever and I had to read it. And, he told me that four of the books are out already and there was a good stopping place after Book 3, if I so desired. It isn't every day your 18-year-old son is begging you to read a book so he can talk about it with you, so I said I would! And I did! I liked it. I'm in the middle of Book 3 now, and Abe is always nagging me to read faster. He says he'll take to me out to lunch when I'm done. Win-win!

Abe talking to Malachi. Probably about The Way of Kings. He's trying to get Malachi to read it too. He wants to talk about it with everyone! (It is a very interesting book, and there is lots to talk about, but we like to tease him about his evangelical zeal.)