3rd Annual Family Camporee and the Villa at Belews Lake

Laura Lou!

The weekend before last was the 3rd annual Family Camporee at Raven Knob!

Matt gets together with the friends he worked at boy scout camp with every year for a beach trip and frisbee golf. A few years ago they decided to add a family weekend and it has been so much fun!

We go up to camp in between sessions- getting there right after lunch on Saturday and leaving right after breakfast on Sunday.

We had a great time creek stomping, swimming, paddle boarding, roasting marshmellows

And making new friends!

Matt's group has started putting their money into a foundation and were able to build this shelter at the climbing tower for the camp. It's really impressive.

Mid-town Cafe! Last weekend of friend Ashley also came to visit. It was great to see her!

Art

This past weekend we went to Belews! Our friend Jarrett got a place up there and it is awesome!!

We swam and rode the boat

And ate ice cream!

Nap time

The girls did not sleep. I was going to let Laura skip her nap so I asked her if she wanted one. She said, "No! I'm pretty much like a grown up". Pretty much.

Mess!

The Bluff

Rebecca!

Two weeks ago we took a trip to Alabama! The girls and I flew down by ourselves and they were good little travelers. Laura is almost three and this is the first trip where she didn't have a huge tantrum about anything. Progress. Matt meet us later in the week. He'd been in Iowa for work.

Beautiful Choctaw Bluff

So many fun things to do! We went swimming

Rode the Ranger

And the Air Pogo

Jumped on the trampoline

And feed the horses! When we were riding up on the horses for the first time Laura said, "Oh, that white horse is pretty like me."

Rebecca caught her first fish!

And we celebrated Jim's birthday! Happy birthday Jim!!

We had a water balloon fight

Kept riding the Ranger

And the daddies put on a fireworks show!

Choctaw Bluff is such a special place and I'm so glad we could be there. We love you Stimpsons!!

Crazy Catch Up

Laura!

Krispy Kreme! So much has happened since my last blog post. We celebrated Father's Day with Matt before we left for our trip. When Rebecca's teacher asked her what a dad was she said  boy who can fix toys. She also said her favorite thing to do with her dad was go to the lake and that her dad was really good at watching TV.

Mya and Zoey! Our sweet friends have moved to Maine and we were really sad to see them go.

The Fosters came to visit!! The girls were so excited to see their cousins!

We had two huge trees removed. I was really sad to see them come down but our yard doesn't really look that different.

We went to the church picnic and there were so many desserts!

Little Laura got the stomach bug. So did Rebecca and she threw up hash browns all over my car. Terrible but it only lasted one day.

We made it to Greensboro for a visit with the Anders!

Rebecca and I are both in love with baby Liddy.

Treats before bed!

Big Trip

10 year wedding anniversary!

Nina and Volker! We made the trip to Germany for their wedding. Volker picked us up from the airport and Nina made us the best breakfast. It was very German. There were pretzels.

We spent the day with Volker walking everywhere, seeing the sights.

I loved Munich!! Everything was just so clean and neat and organized.

Surfing in the park

German hotel

Rome! While we were on our trip we went down to Rome for a few days to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary. The view from our balcony was amazing! We watched the sun set every day.

We stayed in a fancy hotel with a swimming pool! We spent most of the days seeing the sights then laying out in the afternoons.

Coliseum

Forum- I was impressed with everything we saw in Italy. Everything was huge.

Bernini! I'm not sure if I have that name right but going to his museum was my most favorite thing we did in Rome. I guess he was some cardinal that was really into art and this one particular sculptor (Beleni, I think) who's work was so impressive. Just really full of action. The audio tour was excellent and you had to get reservation to go through which was great. Most places we went to were packed out with tourists.

Including the Vatican Museum. This is just the lobby where you buy tickets but the whole tour was like this. Insanity. You can't take pictures of the Sistine Chapel. To be honest it was kind of a let down but surprisingly the modern art collection was great.

St. Peter's Basilica was amazing

So was St. Peter's square

Best meal ever. Truffles on everything. The food in Italy really was so good! 

Back to Germany. 

So many awesome beer gardens

We spent one day a Dachau. It was really upsetting but I'm glad we got to go.

Saturday was the wedding! Amazing!

After the Ceremony Voker and Nina greeted everyone as the walked out of the church. Nina's mom made a sheet with a big read heart on it that said Nina and Volker. They cut it out the heart then walked through it together. 

Our new German best friends! The wedding was at 11 then there was a luncheon at a really pretty place on a lake within walking distance from the church, a group picture and cake. There was an official break from 4 to 6:30 then a sit down dinner and dancing until 2 am. Matt loved it so much. 

Of course he performed the Humpty Dance at the reception. People were very impressed. One lady came up to me just to tell that she thought he needed to be on television. 

Such a great trip! Thank you so much Ms. Joan for keeping the girls. We had a great time!!