Welcome to The Hartland

The Hartland is our family blog. This is where we'll share what is happening in our lives, big and small, with those who care. Enjoy!!

Monday, August 1, 2011

Kelley's Island 2011


In early July we took a long weekend and went camping with my best friend, Jennie, and her family. We headed up to Kelley’s Island, Ohio. Yes, Ohio has some islands, in Lake Erie! We had camped here before two years ago and had such a great time we decided to go back!

Jennie and I had been planning this trip since January. Kelley’s Island is a popular place to camp and the spots fill up quickly so in order to get two campsites next to one another and not be next to the bathrooms, or another undesirable place, we had to call and reserve our spots as soon as possible. The soonest we were able to do this was six months to the day from when we would be arriving at our campsite. Needless to say we didn’t get prime sites but we did end up with the two sites we had two years ago and they suited us just fine!





This year, we decided to bring bikes to ride around the island. We have four children between us that do not ride two wheelers sufficiently enough to be on public roads to for them we brought a babyseat, trailer and two tag along bike trailers so everyone could enjoy the ride! we decided that was one of the best decisions we made, the kids had a blast riding around on their bikes!



Our Campsite





Here are a few of the activities we enjoyed while we were together!

Playing








Peek -a- boo!









Exploring the island


Hiking around Horseshoe Lake


















Finding the old Limestone Crusher building







Ella found young bunnies!



Biking

Not too many of these pictures, I'm not skilled enough to take pictures while riding a bike!




Andrew called anything with wheels a "Wee!"

He was always asking for a "bike wee" aka, a bike ride!




Hanging around the campfire






Doing the "chores"


Andrew loved to help do the dishes!





Jason and I did chores too, just didn't capture that on film!



Fishing












Swimming/Playing at the beach








At one point I lost sight of David only to find that he had swum over to this couple and shmoozed his way onto their enormous raft! That's David for you!




At the end of five days, this is how we all felt!

Potpourri

I just had a few random things to post and decided to lump them together.

First here is a funny picture of our fifteen year old cat, Ghia, with Emily’s guinea pig, Louise. Ghia was just lying on our bed and Jason sat Louise on the bed too and this was the result.



Ghia's enthusiasm at this is evident on his face!






Early in June Jason took the boys to a Volkswagen show and drag race. Masamo was in heaven looking at the cars and watching them tear down the raceway.













David on the other hand, well, I’ll let the pictures do the talking!









Here are a silly things concerning Masamo from the past few months…

We went with Emily to a new orthodontist (long story why we didn’t go to our old orthodontist) to get her permanent retainer fixed. This was only a few short weeks after Emily had her wisdom teeth removed. With that in mind, when the orthodontist was looking in Emily’s mouth Masamo ran over to her and said, “Don’t hurt Emily’s teeth!” He was so worried that Emily would be hurting again after another visit to a “special dentist”.

Back in April when Osama Bin Laden was found and killed, talk of him dominated the airways. As such, when I was listening to the radio one day on the way to pick Emily up from school, they were discussing something or another having to do with the former Al Qaeda leader. Masamo piped up from the back seat and said, “Mommy, are they talking about me?” I chuckled to myself and told him that they were NOT talking about him but about a bad man named Osama, not Masamo. I could see the confusion as the two sound the same!

Masamo asked me in June where orange juice comes from. I returned the question back at him and asked him where he thought it came from. He replied, “From orange cows”. So I asked him if chocolate milk came from brown cows and he said “Yes”. Wouldn’t it be nice if life was that simple?

Emily entered a public bathroom with Masamo and saw something wet on the floor and said "Yuck , what is that?" Masamo answered, "That's camel spit!" Emily asked Masamo, "how did the camel get in here?” Masamo replied, "I don't know but that's camel spit!" Hmmm, maybe he knows something we don’t!

Last week I had a situation where I had to make a quick decision. Jason was mowing the backyard, Emily was in Bulgaria (more on that later), Ella was at a friends house down the street, David was playing inside and Masamo had just wet his pants. I had to go pick Ella up from her friends house and decided not to bother Jason as it was so hot out and he just wanted to get the mowing done quickly. I told Masamo to go inside, go potty and get ready for a bath, aka get naked. I told him that I would be back very shortly and I would give him a bath. I ran down the street, picked up Ella and got out of the car hearing Masamo yelling in the backyard. When I went to investigate Jason had gotten off the tractor and Masamo was naked running around in the backyard. He was trying to get Jason’s attention to tell him he was ready for his bath! I guess I didn’t get through to Masamo, what my expectations were! I made it very clear to him that going outside naked was not acceptable but thanked him for obeying me by getting ready for his bath. You don’t see that everyday driving down your street, I wonder how many people did get to witness Masamo in his birthday suit?!


Here are a couple silly quotes from and a picture of David:


After watching the movie, National Treasure, David asked me, “Mom, what is the Decoration of Independence?”


David was attempting to make his own lunch one day last week and settled on Spaghetti O’s. He got out the can opener and after attempting to use it on his own waved his hands around the can and said “Reveal your secrets to me O wise can opener!” How can you not love that! Needless to say the can opener did not reveal it’s secret and I jumped in and helped open the can, lunch saved!

You may not know this but David's belly button is a perfect swirl! It's just like a cinnamon roll!