Our week with Gaven

Avery, Scott, and I enjoyed this last week with our nephew and Avery's cousin, Gaven. The week went way too fast and we kept Gaven busy. He was so tired, he asked me if he could take a nap! What nine year old asks to take a nap? The week was filled with many activities from swimming at the pool, going on bike rides, watching a parade, going on a scavenger hunt, going to the zoo, baking, playing pool, and going to the beach where they had an art cart. Gaven made a plaster mold of his face and we tried to make a plaster mold of Avery's foot. It turned out okay, but he kept pulling it out of the sand too soon. Scott was having a little too much fun with Gaven on our first bike ride when he decided to try to go down a hill and take a big jump. Just as he was going to make the jump, he crashed. With his toe clips in he did 3 flips. It was a crazy crash and he should have been hurt worse than he was. All in all, we had a great week with Gaven and the house is an eerie quiet without him.

Scott and Gaven playing dart tag. Look how small the vest is on Scott! We made up a scavenger hunt for Gaven to find his gift. It was fun watching him figure clues out.

Avery had fun playing with Gaven all week.

What a ham. Who knew that pool chalk could be so fun?

This shoe is at the park by the zoo. I thought it was cute how they were both sticking their head out the windows.

Geocaching!

Tonight Scott, Avery, Gaven, Venus and I walked around town and did a geocache. If you don't know what it is, here is a definition from the geocache website:

What is Geocaching?

Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for gps users. Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a gps unit. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache.

Our adventure was to visit hidden parks in our town. We had five different cache's we had to find. Each one was hidden in a different park with a clue on how to find the next one. It's a great game that's all over the world. You just have to go to the website to find where cache's are in your area.



I'm pointing to where the clue was hidden. It was in a film canister in the hole in the tree. Gaven is holding the canister.

One Year Pictures

When we were in Duluth we went to the rose garden to take Avery's one year pictures.

A Mini Adventure

This weekend we decided on a whim to go to Duluth for our 6th anniversary. We packed up the car on Friday with kid, dog, and ferrets and headed to our home that sits vacant. Once there we met up with a friend and walked the Lake Walk and then met more friends at a restaurant. From there, we were invited to go camping on a beach right on Lake Superior. We didn't have any camp equipment, but that hardly mattered! We borrowed a tent from some friends and then packed down the rest of our bulky things. The moon over the lake was gorgeous and the s'mores were the best. Avery did great sleeping in the tent for the first time. He was even up until after 10 and he did so well! I think he loves adventures too! On Saturday we packed up and headed back to Duluth to hike, eat at a restaurant over looking the lake, go to church, and of course eat carmel apples! Canal park has this little candy shop that has the best caramel apples. I should know, I've eaten a lot over the years. In all, the trip was fun and it was great to see friends we hadn't seen in awhile. It was as if we had never left. We love the outdoors there and the fun, crazy, spontaneous friends we have.

This is where we stayed. It is a free kayaking site off of Lake Superior. Not many people know about it, so the whole beach was empty. Our site is in the trees to the right.


One friend took advantage of the beautiful night and slept under the stars.


This was Avery at 9:30; he was in a great mood!


Left to right: Caleb 6 weeks old (he's in the bouncy seat in a blanket), Rachel, Jamie, Holly, and Scott. Avery was on my back in the backpack when I took the picture. Who knows where Venus was, probably eating something dead on the beach.