The Inevitable Part II

My original plan was to split Lassen into three posts because of so many pictures. However, I'd like to just get this over with and move on with life : ) So, this might get a little long. But then it will be over!
On Tuesday the staff at Lassen Pines opened up the go-cart course free of charge for the day. They announced that riders had to be at least 10 years old. Bummer. But then my dad found out that little ones could ride with an adult. So, I prompted Ezra to wake up from one of his long afternoon naps and, leaving Caroline still snoozing in the cabin with my mom, ran Ezra over to the go-cart course. He took one spin with Grandpa Tractor and one with Mommy Dearest. Grandpa was able to get into one of the fast cars, while I rode in the notoriously slow white car. We had fun. Mitchell and his parents were riding at the same time.

What a fun time Ezra had--swimming and go-carting all in one day. Each afternoon I was able to take Ezra and Caroline back to our cabin for a nap after lunch. After an hour my mom would come and take over watching the kids and allow me to head up to the baseball field to play girl's softball for an hour. It was so fun to be a non-mommy for an hour each day. It was just like being a young person again...sort of. It hurt a lot worse when I fell while running for a ball in the outfield--there are a lot of holes in the ground out there! I also bobbled a lot more plays. And batting was more embarrassing. But it sure was fun : ) There are some highly embarrassing pictures of me batting out there on facebook...but no one cares because I'm just an old married lady--phew!

Playing on the steps outside the eating tent.

Grandpa got a little gift from Brazil. Payback for a graduation gift he sent to Brian Be-Naughty last year. Emmy Red-Hair made the delivery since her brother couldn't make it to Lassen. Grandpa paid his dues and wore the shirt two days while at camp. Now it will probably be auctioned off on Ebay or something, just kidding Be-Naughtys!

At Lassen we are served three meals a day: breakfast, lunch, supper and before bed "snack"--which is just as much a meal as any of the others. There is ice cream available every night and it's been hard teaching the kids that their nightly "si-cream" is not something that continues at home.

This is my ice cream on Sundae Night. This is a small bowl. Cookie dough, vanilla and chocolate ice cream topped with fresh made hot-fudge, pineapple and strawberries. OH-MY-WORD! I ate about three times this much as a teenager. I saw many young men with gallon size bowls filled to the brim and also a plate loaded with nachos covered in chili and cheese sauce.

Some of the big eaters.

We took our parachute up to the baseball field one day and Ezra found plenty of young people willing to re-live first grade PE class and play with him.

Watching the boys play ball.

Parachute models. Incidentally, if you live close enough you can come over on Tuesdays for Toddler Time and play with this very parachute. Anyone, anyone?

When I first went to Lassen at 12 years old one of the first pictures I took was of these two lovely ladies. And here they are again.

The lake is home to a million polywogs and tiny fish. The kids were taken up to the lake by Grandpa most days where they threw rocks, looked at tadpoles, threw pebbles to attract the fish and even found a mommy duck with her 7 little babies one day!

There's Brock asking my dad to prove that one polywog was indeed dead and not just resting. Ew

Boys and rocks...

Girls too.

One last breakfast before we hit the road for home. It's been so rough coming back to real life and learning to cook meals and do the dishes three times a day.

And finally, the patient and cute girls of Cabin 4.

Of course, there were many other pictures I meant to take. But it just didn't happen. We were able to go--we had a blast--we made it home safely, Praise the Lord! So many thanks to my mom and dad for helping us on the drive down and to Aaron and Kris for helping us home.