Separate Vacations

 This was the first summer that we didn't all vacation together. Victoria came up for that day at Riverbend, but since she didn't actually sleep with us, it doesn't even count. There was just enough color guard practices/camps, physical therapy, and work for Kai and work for Victoria, that it wasn't in the cards this summer.

Victoria had her own vacation in Utah for AFY (Adventure For Youth) and Cougarette Camp. She got to zipline and do a high ropes course, mountain bike, and kayak at AFY. She met a lot of amazing youth from all over, but especially from Utah. The couple of days before she went to AFY, she went to the temple with kids from my mom and sister's stake. So when AFY was over and she was in her rest week before Cougarette Camp, she had plenty of friends to hang out with between all the new people she met and family/cousins who live there as well. She also got to participate in an awesome family history scavenger hunt with the youth in the Stake. I think she got some rest before Cougarette Camp, which she said was just about the hardest thing she has ever done! She got to stay in Helaman Halls on BYU's campus and eat dinner there. They had catered lunches in the middle of their 6 hours of dance practice and got to attend dances and activities on campus in the evenings. She was with some pretty amazing dancers, I'm sure, but she held her own and managed to make it to the finals in the hip-hop competition, even though the only experience she has had with that is through Tiktok! Her improv group did really well also. 

AFY Group

At the dance.

Victoria with the Cougarettes

Coach's daughter and Victoria's friend.

Cougarette Campers

Kai went to Away Camp for band/color guard at Camp Friedenswald in the-middle-of-nowhere Cassopolis, MI, about 2 1/2 hours from our home. It's on the way to Lake Michigan from our house. For Kai, it was also a very strenuous week full of warm-ups, stretching, hours of dance practice, flag tossing, and coordinating with the band. They had some fun night activities like dancing and games as well, plus swimming in the beautiful lake nearby (not Lake Michigan). I got to pick Kai up and see a sneak peek of their performance entitled "Band to the Future". It's going to be awesome! Kai's best friend's sister is the Drum Major, so that's pretty cool.

Kai's on the right.

50's dance part

The week Kai was away was the week Jason took the boys to Amarillo to visit his parents who have just moved there, as well as his brother Thomas and his family, who happen to live 15 minutes away! I would have loved to have gone and missed seeing our Mercado family, but I wanted to be near in case Kai got injured (like last year) or sick (as what happened during 5th grade away camp). They couldn't go the next week because Austin is a WEB (Where Everyone Belongs) leader and they had their training the week after. So it was just Victoria and me at home that week. She mostly went to work and hung with her friends, but we did have some good times together as well. With everyone else gone, it was very easy to have quality time with Victoria and plenty of time for everything else. I had no idea what I could accomplish without shopping for and preparing food for everyone and driving them everywhere they need to be. I even still watched Jacob each day from 9:45-4:15 because his mom was desperate, even though there were no kids here. I was a little worried at first that he would be bored or that I would have to entertain him more than I would have liked, but that was not the case. He played so well on his own and we would interact when he wanted and I still got a lot accomplished. I made sure to organize something at the park each afternoon with friends so he could play with kids and I could talk with mom friends. I still had all evening to organize, relax, and hang with Victoria a bit. Jacob got more comfortable talking to me since Erik wasn't around and he really opened up! (It's too bad they're moving, just like too many of our beloved friends...)

Out with friends.

I took care of a friend's cats for a bit while she was out-of-town.

Meanwhile, Jason, Austin, and Erik drove the 20 hours to Amarillo and had a great time driving in the truck for the first long road trip. They listened to lots of Harry Potter on the way there and back and got very good gas mileage! They helped Gramms and Abuelo with some things around the house, went for a hike at Palo Duro Canyon State Park (the 2nd biggest canyon in the US), swam with Thomas' kids, played on the Switch with them, and enjoyed good food and great company! I think they enjoyed the responsibility of helping more in the car on the road and being with just Jason for a while. 

Almost taller than Gramms!

Cousins like the same things!

Austin helped Abuelo put this grill together.

Erik helped Jason change this fridge door from the other side.

Palo Duro hike

Hot!

Gramms and Abuelo's back-door neighbors!

I have to say, though, it was a happy reunion to have us all back together again, more than a week later. This just gave us a sneak peek as to what it will be like when Victoria leaves for either college or a mission or whatever else could happen next year. 

Monstrous Garden!

 Since we built new garden plots in a new location, we had more fresh compost and dirt, including alfalfa pellets. Because of that, our garden was very successful! The tomatoes are jamming, the green beans and pea pods are about done, but they were delicious, we got some cool and crunchy cucumbers, and the zucchini has been absolutely crazy! They're the big, humongous ones that people like to show on FB. We pick biweekly, and they come in clusters! They have shaded our romaine, so the romaine is more successful than other years because they haven't seen much sun and keep producing. Our basil is about normal, we've always had the same level of success with it. It makes very tasty pesto!

I'm sure when we first put the garden in, a little extra fertilizer went in too...

We had extra sticks from our tree that we used as compost at the very bottom so we wouldn't need as much dirt.

Baby garden

Looking just right in late June.

The thing that makes our garden monstrous is the mystery squash that's been growing. We noticed it right away, right after we planted seeds, like the day after, meaning it was not a purposeful plant. We assumed it was probably pumpkin because we had used all of our compost dirt, which had some composted pumpkins in it from years past and I noticed some pumpkin seeds in our compost. We continued to think and hope it was pumpkin because it was doing so well and we have had mediocre success with pumpkins. But now, the fruits are lengthening and looking more like zucchini, though definitely not that, and some are starting to turn yellow. Which could very well mean that they're yellow squash. However, I have planted yellow squash before and it was on the same timing as the zucchini, whereas this is not. It was sprouting way before anything else and didn't get fruit until way after, especially the zucchini. So, we'll continue to wait and see what it is, maybe it's some new cross breed of squash, who knows? (FYI: I have only planted yellow squash once, and that was way before we had a compost bin, so it's hard to believe it's that either.)

This was taken just before the tomatoes started to ripen. You can see the tomato plants on the left. The zucchini and the mystery squash are planted behind the tomatoes and are covering the pavers that are right next to the sunroom.

The mystery squash spreads everywhere! See it on the deck?

And over my tomatoes. I have to trim it back at least a few times a week.

They're very well pollinated. Whenever I go in the morning to pick veggies the bees are very busy with all the yellow blossoms. I've never seen so much pollination in our garden! And do you see the darker green vine in the pic? That's part of the vine work and it's thicker and darker than the other vines. I've never seen that before either.

Here's another view of a darker vine and a fruit that's starting to turn yellow on the left.

Riverbend

There is a town called Omer, not far from the base of the "thumb" of Michigan and only 2 1/2 hours from our house. In Omer is a campsite called Riverbend. Kai has gone there twice with her friend Olivia's family and has come home raving about how fun it is, especially the cliff jumping! My other kids, always up for an adventure, have wanted to try cliff jumping and see what Riverbend is like. Since we didn't do a big family trip this summer, we decided this would be the perfect time to go to Riverbend. 

I knew there was a possibility that Victoria would have to work since she was gone for most of July at EFY and Cougarette Camp, but luckily the drive was doable for her to meet us for the kayak trip and cliff jumping on Tuesday.

The rest of us went up Monday afternoon and discovered an almost empty campsite. Our site was at the very end and so we pretty much had a whole area to ourselves. Besides us and another family with a boy my kids played with at the playground, the other campers were full-time summer residents of Riverbend who we didn't even really see much of. It was so peaceful and relaxing! We were a stone's throw away from the river. One morning we even saw deer frolicking in the water! 

I'm standing right in front of our camper here.

The deer leaving

The playground was amazingly fun with the best twirly swing ever! The kids spent hours there. We also played games, star gazed, sang songs to Kai's guitar, played volleyball, explored the woods, and of course, for the main events, went down the river.

Round and round they went! It's amazing Erik didn't get sick from it!

There was a port-a-potty really close to our campsite, even though the bathroom wasn't far. I guess it's for the late-night potty-goers. I finally checked it out because Jason told me how clean it was. Yeah, it was the cleanest port-a-potty I have ever been in! That SUV to the right was the closest camper to ours at the end there. I never really saw the people at their site much.

Pretty flowers on our walk.

Wading in the river.

They have buses that take people up the river with kayaks, canoes, or inner tubes. Tuesday, we went later so that Victoria could meet us and we kayaked, so it would be a little faster. It took about 2- 2/12 hours to kayak back to our campsite and it was so fun! Toward the end of that run, just before arriving at Riverbend, is where the cliff jumping is. At first, the cliff didn't look very big or exciting, but it was a good first try for these kids and was still plenty high for them to have a ton of fun! They definitely got their thrills out of it. Even Jason jumped once! It's interesting because the river itself isn't very deep, but there are a few places along the river that have really deep pockets right off the side that allows for cliff jumping and a rope swing that Victoria and I discovered as we were catching up to the rest of the family after she arrived. 

Austin loved that flower was growing out of a log in the middle of the river!

Cliff jumping!

Victoria left later that evening after dinner. We got ice cream just before she left at a cute place called Sundaes Afternoon. The next morning, after I went for a speedy run with Austin, we took the bus to the starting point and floated on inner tubes down the river. The other kids had to stop at the rope swing since they missed it the day before. It was much easier to do the rope swing from the inner tubes than the kayaks since there's not really a place to leave the kayaks. I had to hold onto a root from the cliff to keep from floating down the river while Victoria swung from the rope. With the tubes, it was easier for the kids to keep their tubes in the brush. Though Jason and I still had to hold on to roots so we wouldn't float away while waiting for them. 

Victoria wore the life jacket for the first 5 minutes. After jumping off the rope with it on, she quickly shed it! I noticed the others had theirs off when we caught up with them as well.

I actually got good pics of the rope swing when I wasn't holding onto two paddles, a kayak, and a root!

The food raft!

They were on this cliff somewhere...

The tubes took about twice as long to float down the river as the kayaks. So yes, it did take about 4 1/2 hours. We did have our food on a little raft attached to mine and were able to take breaks for that, along with more exploration and play for the kids along the way, but we really didn't think it would take that long. The kids still had a blast and Jason and I enjoyed a lot of it, but we decided that was way too long. Jason even got motion sickness from being in the heat and sun and floating down a river that would sometimes turn you this way or that. While the kids jumped off the cliff, he rested in the shade. 

Once we made it back and Jason was somewhat recovered, we enjoyed the rest of the evening and the next morning at our site before heading back home. I felt so refreshed after a few days out in nature with hardly anyone around. We're so happy Kai introduced us to another favorite place here in Michigan!

Master chef!

Austin, eating handfuls of peas!