Spring break

This spring break we did nothing but recoup from the hiking trip, and get some much needed yardwork done.  I finally am going to have a garden this year and Nate helped me to make it look spectacular.

Doing a little extra reading



Caught a glimpse of this guy chasing girls.

A little help goes a long way

 

Never get tired of this kind of help

 

Even Roxie loves to help

 

This is the best dog, she loves the outdoors and has hypochondriac tendencies like me.

My steady guy

After a long day of hauling pine straw

 

The littles took a break for some fun double swinging

 

 

 

 

The finished product.  Three 4 x 8 square foot gardens.  I am going to leave the last one without grids and put the tomatoes and the climbing squash over there.  One of the things that I am going to implement from the aquare foot gardening book is to stagger the planting weeks and think about sections that I want to harvest every week.  That way I can have the veggies I love all summer long rather than it coming in all at once.  I am excited to get started this week with the planting.

The back yard

A little beautifying in the house as well.

The Appalachian Trail or Trial

The oldest Kissack invited my hubby and eldest two to accompany him and his eldest two on an Appalachian adventure. The trip also included Sandi who had accompanied the Kissacks last year.  They were to have left Wed and arrive back Monday evening.  Due to extreme weather they called for a rescue pickup Friday evening.  They did cover 35 plus miles in those three days, and for my crew that was a big feat.  Nate has bad knees and ankles and Evan was one day off medication for a vicious staff infection in his foot.  I was pretty worried about him, but he manned up after some literal pushing from his Dad and found his trail legs on day 2.    Nate came home with a swollen ankle that he rolled on the trail, Landon came back with his feet on fire, Evan came home limping from a pulled butt muscle.  The rest of them fared much better.  All in all they had an adventure and the rest of the weekend was full of stories and teasing.  I had a lovely time with the littles in school and evenings with Tonya and her littles that didn't go.  

The pictures are of course out of order.  One day I will remember how to post them in order. I was just so happy Picasa was going to cooperate this time.

I guess he was a paid sponsor for these products

A lovely wild plant

The view from atop the fire tower

The climb up

A place from Middle Earth, the Wringwraiths are closing in.

The rain descends and Micah transforms

The hunchback made it along after all

The dorks in all their glory

I laugh every time

A father son moment  in the midst of a downpour

What the rescuers found on the side of the road.

So happy to be eating

The long trail.

So far so good

 

He really started to feel the burn.

 

Sandi looks happy after the long haul

Noah was unfazed by any of the hike.  Uncle Nate nicknamed him 2 1/2 after they concluded that he had 2 hearts, 2 sets of lungs, but only half a brain.

Austin stayed steady

Landon of course was a machine the entire time, he must be a teenager trapped in an old man's body. Ha!

 

Nate was called Tortoise because he was usually the last one to stroll into camp, but he did manage to out do the whippersnappers with 25 push ups with his pack on after entering camp.  The young bucks were quite impressed.

camp life

The shelter

 Noah came up with the 100 ankle hop for Nate to do after he showed them up with the pushups.  Nate had sprained his ankle so Noah took advantage of his weakness and showed him up.

Just the boys

 

Evan had found his stride and Noah must have snuck some energy drinks in that innocent looking water bottle.