Apple Picking

We went apple picking with some of Ben's family the last week in September. We went to a pretty new orchard which was nice because the apples were so low to the ground that even Trevor could help pick them. Speaking of Trevor, he was in heaven. He ate like twenty apples that night (maybe a slight exaggeration). He loved it. We picked a bushel of Jonathans, Gala and Jonagolds and made eighteen quarts of applesauce that weekend. The way that boy has been devouring it though, it may not last too long.

 

Camping 2013

 Last month we decided to take a (very) spontaneous camping trip. We borrowed pretty much all of the camping supplies from family members, packed some tin foil dinners and snacks, loaded up every blanket we owned and headed out to Mary Jane Thurston State Park for some quality family time. We had a blast! Trevor was so happy. He thought the tent, the fire, the camping chairs, the flashlights, etc were the all the greatest things ever.

Trevor and I set up the tent while Ben started the fire. All the wood around us was soaking wet. It took forever to finally get a good fire going. And really, the only reason we had a fire at all is that some old guy came over and doused our wet, smoking wood with lighter fluid. Thank goodness. We finally ate dinner around 9:00. Late, but delicious.

We bundled up and headed to bed. Trevor wanted nothing to do with the pack and play, so we let him lay in bed with us and watched The Incredibles, hoping he would just fall asleep. No luck. Ben and I both fell asleep though. I woke up to the credits at the end of the movie and closed the computer and Trevor was very upset at me for turning it off. Thankfully I just rocked him for a few minutes and he passed out. Turns out he is a pretty active sleeper. He was punching and kicking me all night long. He also does not like to sleep with blankets on him, which normally isn't a problem, but when it gets down to about 35 degrees, it's not the best. Anyway, none of us really slept very well, but we still had a good time.

We got up around seven the next morning and ate cookies and Reeses for breakfast because I forgot to pack half of breakfast and we didn't want to deal with the fire again. We drove home, unpacked, threw in a load of laundry and took a fantastic nap. This was our first family camping trip, and we loved it. We will definitely be doing it again, though next time we'll give ourselves a little more time to prepare, and we'll pick a night that is not so miserably cold. All in all though, we had an awesome time and it was so much fun to hang out, just the three of us.

Helping set up the tent

Finally starting our tin foil dinners at about 8:00

 

 

Watching a movie to "help us fall asleep"

 

Reeses for breakfast

a kajillion pictures.

I realize I'm way behind on updating this thing. So to make things easy I'm just going to overload you... we're talking completely bombard you... with pictures of the past few months and call it good. Here ya go.

Mudhens game with the Cahills

Watching the rain with Daddy. Not staged, mind you.

18 months!

12 hour road trip to GA

Gramps and Grammie. Family night.

Arthur in the bird's nest with Ryan and Kaylyn

4th of July festivities

Our first real harvest from our first real garden after being out of town for a week

Coming home from a day in the garden

Garden 2013

FHE with all 19 Griffioen grandkids

Detroit Temple

Smores with the fam. Also demonstrating what an airplane says

Big helper

First try with green smoothies. Success.

Pretty sure I have a baby picture similar to this. I'll have to do a comparison one of these days.

Father's Day 2013.

Showing off an awesome fort we built.

Playing in the awesome fort we built.

Packing for Georgia

His baseball and "bat"

Curly hair

I love this kid

Trevor and me playing with my phone.  The kid is so cute.

I've already watched this a ton, and every time I watch it I still smile.  I'm a lucky dad to have such an awesome little boy.