Washington County Fair Race

Thursday evening Mark, Ethan and I headed to the Washington County fair for a motocross race. The weather started off extremely hot and cut our night short with a big thunderstorm!

Ethan ready to race!

This isn't good! Mark's bike was locked up and he had to have a friend pull start him before the race. It seems that Elijah watched Ethan wash his bike earlier that afternoon and he thought he would be nice and "wash" Mark and his Uncle Kurt's bikes. Well he ended up getting water in the mufflers locking them both up. Thankfully no damage was done to either one!

Ethan in line ready for his practice with all the other 50cc riders. They have two 50cc classes, one for 4-5 year olds and one for 7-8 year olds, at this track they all raced at the same time.

These young riders have a lot to watch out for during a race. There's jumps and ruts, other riders and often times the little ones will fall over and need help starting again, so they even have to watch out for parents on the track!

Ethan did great and never wrecked once!

Passing on the last half lap to win second place! Ethan was very disappointed the rain came cancelling the second moto, he would have loved to race again!

Mark also raced, this time in the Open B Class. This class is mainly teenagers that are very aggressive, with out a wife and kids at home to support. :) Next race I'm going to encourage him to go back to the +30 B Class, these guys don't have the " I'm invincible" attitudes of teenagers.

Vacation 2011 - Elephant Rocks & Camp

This will be my final post on vacation. I've already posted way to many pictures for one small trip! On our last full day we took a short drive to Elephant Rock State Park. It was fun for the kids to climb rocks and explore. The added bonus was no long walk to get to it!

Elijah and Ezra off to explore.

Bigger rocks for bigger kids. Ethan is using the tree to get down rather than back tracking to move on. There were several very high places that kids could fall and get hurt so we had to watch them close.

Back at camp Anton enjoyed his first smore. As you can tell he liked it!

A family picture in front of our cabin.

Don't let this sweet smile fool you, Anton was a crab most of the way home!

About 5 minutes into our drive home our truck started acting up. After a stop at a dealership we found it was the injectors giving us problems. Kurt pulled Mark part way home until we met up with a friend who brought a trailer and Mark hauled it the rest of the way home. We all made it home safely and thankfully it's looking like our insurance will cover the repairs!

Thanks for a fun vacation everyone!

Vacation 2011 - River Rats

We spent a good part of a day swimming and riding in the Black River which was near our campground.

Elijah sporting his river swimming wear!

A FULL tube!

Someone got in a little deep!

Mark and his siblings in the river.

Three boys floating down the river.

Safety Disclaimer: The water was so shallow they had to get out because they kept getting hung up. Plus Grandma was riding with them but got off before I snapped a picture. :)

I've added a couple vacation posts which I started Saturday. They are coming up before the the St. Louis Zoo post. So if you want to check them out be sure to scroll down!

Vacation 2011 - St. Louis Zoo

I've added two more vacation posts which are after this one.

We spent a few days vacationing in Southern Missouri with Marks family this past week. We had a fun time despite extremely hot weather most of the time. Our trip started with a hotel stay in St. Louis were the kids spent lots of time in the pool and watching cartoons in the lobby. The next morning a few of us braved the heat and went to the St. Louis Zoo. I was surprised to find out the zoo is actually free to visit. They charge to park but we opted to park on a side street and walk for free. I would love to go back on a cool day with the family, Grants Farm is another free attraction in St. Louis I would enjoy going to.

The two young ones looking very hot! Anton wouldn't give up his blanket even though the heat index was over 100!

The penguin house was 45 degrees, it was a wonderful way to cool off and was Anton's favorite part.

I tried to get Ethan to kiss the cobra statue but he wasn't interested, I was lucky just to get him in a picture!

Amelia getting up close to a huge hippo.

Elijah's favorite animals were the elephants.

Three hot little boys shedding clothes.

Hey you girls aren't babies! Poor Karl had a heavy load!

Vacation 2011 - Johnsons Shut-In's

Sunday night after we had all settled in our cabins we headed over to check out the shut-ins. I forgot my camera in the truck and was to lazy to make the long walk back, but we ended up going back the next morning were I got these pictures.

The shut-ins are these rock formations with water flowing through them. I took this picture from a high observation site, you can see all the swimmers scattered though out the rocks.

The pool of water on the top of this picture was a great spot with shallow water that we spent much of our time the first evening.

This was were we went the next morning, a lot deeper. We all swam across this pool to another pool which I was told was 20+ feet deep. The second area also had high cliffs (40 feet high) on one side which Mark jumped off. I wish I had pictures from the cliffs but I couldn't swim with a kid and a camera.

The rocks actually look pretty dangerous, but other than being slick in several places I didn't think they were to bad. The kids were required to wear life jackets most of the time and seemed to like playing in the larger pools of water rather than exploring the rocks, which made it easier to watch them. I felt like I was counting counting 1,2,3,4 (my 4 kids) constantly though!

We found that Anton hates water! He was by far the most stressful kid ever, bawling a lot! He never really warmed up to the idea of playing in the water, but due to the extreme heat we made him get wet to stay cool and then would take turns holding him on a rock or in very shallow water. Poor kid seemed out of sorts most of the trip. Thankfully he has been a happy camper since we got home!

Is it poisonous?

2-3 water snakes were found along the way. I asked a guy at the visitor center what kind of snakes we most likely ran into and he said the common water snake which isn't poisonous.

Vacation 2011 - Hot Days

I wasn't exaggerating when I said it was HOT! In fact I think the heat will be one of the main things we remember about this vacation! :) The positive side is all the water activities that we were able to enjoy. Past vacations to the mountains or Great Lakes weren't so warm.

I wish this sign included the very high humidity too.

Ice cream or a slush were on the menu one hot afternoon!

Elijah digging in the rocks for crawdads or rocks to throw in the water.

I was brave and helped the boys catch these creepy crawlies.

Mark helped Ethan and Elijah fish in the little pond by our cabin. The didn't have much luck, only lily pads to my knowledge.

John's family found this box turtle crossing the hwy the kids got a kick out of him before releasing him into the pond near our cabins. We also saw a box turtle crossing the hwy the next day, I'm not sure what they were up to on the hot road.

Since it was so hot and we had a big ice cream snacks we ate supper late a few times.

Happy 4th of July

We had a fun 4th of July weekend again this year. The annual neighborhood picnic, fireworks and swimming were highlights for our family!

Here is Ethan and Cody being pulled around the pond by the wave runner.

Anton would prefer to hang out on dry land with his blankie.

I really liked Grandma's new purchase. This "raft" had a nice mesh center that would keep the little biting fish away and the kids loved it!

Karl skiing in a big circle around the pond. A few of the kids went skiing as well but I didn't get pictures of them.

Summer Fun

June has been a busy month for our family. It seems like we've made a trip to town nearly every day between Bible school and swimming lessons. Thankfully those activities are over and everything went well! July looks to be a busy month too, some of our plans are vacation and putting new siding and a few windows on our house. I am so looking forward to both!

Amelia jumping in the deep end. She did a great job in swimming lessons this year and is swimming well! I think she could save herself if she needed to but another year a lessons is in her future.

Ethan wasn't at all interested in swimming lessons, he said they were boring. He does very well swimming and diving. Since he is to the point of only learning the different swimming strokes I don't think I'll send him again.

Our garden is starting to produce veggies! Here Amelia is picking snow peas for supper.

We bought Elijah his own bike for his birthday. He wasn't sure about it at first but is enjoying riding more and more with Ethan and Amelia.

Not sure if anyone else is being invaded by these adorable little frogs but we've had our fair share jumping around this year!