This time 2 weeks ago the Simple family was pulling a behemoth of an RV off the the road with lines onto one caked with dirt and frequented or rather in-frequented by Fords and Chevy’s.  Three children were sleeping in the glow of dash light and we were on our way to meet the fourth.  The eldest.  The one who chose to exchange a week of summer horse camp for a week on a working cattle ranch. Her father and she made the 6 hour trek the weekend before and he’d returned alone.  We’d spent the week muddling through without her.  She’d spent the week riding, sunburning, candle making, fence fixing, horse washing and generally loving ranch life.

You’ll be wondering, why the RV?  Several reasons really.  1. We no longer have enough room in our vehicle for children and luggage.  2. Six hours in a car with 2 under 2 is not a trip anyone likes to make.  and 3. We’ve always said we would and that particular weekend the stars aligned in a most unusual way.  (two family reunions on the same weekend but not the same day all the way across the state but within 40 minutes of one another)  Anyway, the idea began with us renting something like this.

But exactly what one wants in RV land is hard to come by for Memorial Day weekend so we ended up with something more like this.

On Friday afternoon, Will meets the pickup/drop-off guy to get the keys, do a walk through and have a mini driving lesson before we take off.  It is, after all, HUGE and neither of us have ever driven anything like it.  So the man hands Will the keys, shows him some items of importance inside and says, “Have a good time.”

Will asks, “What about the driving lesson?”

“Oh, right.  Swing wide and watch your tail.”  He pauses, “Also, you better have someone spot you the first time you pull in for gas.  You wouldn’t want to clip one of those tanks.”  Then he walked away laughing and repeating “… clip a tank … ha, ha, … KaBoom!”

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t exactly like that but I’m trying to capture the essence of what happened so go with me on this, k?

By 3:30 we are finally loaded and on our way discovering what it means to swing wide and also, why all the cabinets have latches.  Everything is rattling and jiggling.  Things I thought well placed are dancing off of sofas and Will and I are looking at one another thinking, “What on earth have we gotten into?”

By 4:30 all the hatches have been battened, children are either sleeping or watching a video and I’m starting to fall in love with this method of travel.

The rest of the trip was a breeze and completely uneventful if you don’t count the part where two screws fell out of the cabinet holding a large television right above Will’s head.  Or the gallon jug of water that fell off the counter and burst open on the floor.  Or that transition from payment to dirt road and then dirt road to washboard driveway when I knew the whole vehicle was doomed to shake apart.  Anyway, we arrived.  We reunioned. And we drove home.  The End.

But it’s not really the end, of course, because what kind of blogger would I be if I didn’t provide some highlights.

Totally fake look of confidence.

Meeting the goat.

Meeting the horses.

Playing in the sand with the cousin he already knew.

Down by the creek

Looking like a dear deer

Sister (and cousins) performing their sunset horse show.

Watching sunset show and the deer dear.

Family music time (Dora’s first.  Her favorite key is, not surprisingly, “D”.”)

One last thing

All tuckered out.

And I would do it again …. just not this year.

Tonight we took our first trip of the summer to a nearby lake. We put on our suits, packed up sandwiches and left the house at the same time Dad left work.   I’ve no pictures to show you because I didn’t take my camera.  I didn’t take my camera because 1) my actual camera battery was dead, 2) my secondary camera resides in my somewhat irreplaceable phone and 3) because sometimes I get tired of being the photographer recording the moment.  Sometimes I just want to enjoy the moment.  So tonight I did.  Not that there weren’t plenty of opportunities for photos.

There was Brother carrying 2 towels, diaper bag and a too big beach ball.  And the look of terror on his face when the wind caught the ball and he realized there was nothing he could do to save it.  There were Sister’s legs pumping like pistons as she dropped her own load and sprinted across the sand to save it for him.

There was the delight in Dora’s eyes when she finally realized that the water was not evil and that it was not out to get her with its insidious wetness.

Brother making sand angels and sifting for treasure.

Little Z wearing his baby blue swim shirt (purchased in a sale last summer before he’d even arrived) and Dora’s old hot pink swim hat which she would never keep on but that he rather liked.

Sister dancing with glee on the picnic table with the setting sun casting an angelic sort of glow on her cheeks.

Dora pulling her little plastic red wagon, filled to the brim with bucket and digging tools,  all the way from the water’s edge to the grass at the end of the sand.  She knew she’d done a big thing and the picture of pride on her face I’ve tucked away in my memory to look at again later along with all the rest.

It was a good evening.

I usually hesitate to schedule anything during naptime but this was one of those weeks that deserved to have something nice happen at the end; so this afternoon we met our homeschool group at the zoo to watch the penguin feeding.

Big kids enjoyed it.  Little kids didn’t really seem to care. (To be fair this picture is smack dab in the middle of naptime.)

Then we saw the rhinos.

Up close and personal like.

The tortoises were on Brother’s must see list. It’s been one of his favorite exhibits for some time now.  (I suspect that he relates to them on some level.)

And what’s the point of stopping by the turtles if you don’t stop by THE turtle.

Sister scaled a big rock that none of the boys in this picture could; eliciting cheers from the random lady standing behind me.

We also made a trek through the rain forest. (Still no poison dart frogs for the curious among you.)

But this was by far the highlight of the trip.

An insider tip for my local friends.  If you choose to do this, wait until there is no line and they’ll let you go a lot longer.

Also, remind me to tell you later about the current go-to snack in this Simple household.  It’s super-easy.  Highly portable and if you have some in your car after a trip to the zoo it’s 98% guaranteed to eliminate melt-downs.

It’s October and you know what that means … pumpkin time.

Our homeschool coop met for a regular Friday meeting and then decided to travel on together to a local pumpkin patch for a picnic (try saying that three times fast)  Good conversation, fresh air and fun for the kiddos.

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Beyond outings with my kids, I’ve never set up a field trip before but in our local homeschool group the moms take turns finding interesting places to visit so I nabbed a September spot and set about looking for someplace …. well, interesting.  A local metal recycling facility seemed to fit the bill.  Every time we travel into the city my kids point to their big cranes as we pass, “Look, Mom, look!”  So I called just to see.  The worst they could do was say “no”, right?  But they didn’t instead they were very enthusiastic about our coming.

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One of the things I like best about homeschooling is the ability to take my kids to popular destinations when they are not so popular.  Brother and Sister really pitched in last week to help me with some much needed deep cleaning so I offered to take them somewhere as a thank you.  They chose the zoo.  This is what the parking lot looked like when we arrived on a Tuesday morning about a half hour after opening time.

This is what the train looked like when we finally got around to riding it …. almost 4 hours after opening.

The day was cool but sunny with just a bit of breeze ~ a perfect day to own a zoo.

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Funny story ~ One day in second grade I asked permission to go to the restroom.  My teacher said, “yes” and I left the room.  Not more than 5 minutes later I returned to a completely deserted classroom.  For the next two hours I divided my time between waiting in the empty classroom and wandering the campus of our little school.  Eventually, my class returned.  They had gone to the fire station.  For years I lamented not the fact that as a second grader I was left alone for two hours but that I had missed out on an essential childhood field trip.  Today that sad chapter finally found a happy conclusion made all the sweeter because I got to share it with the best classmates ever: hubby and our three kiddos.

When Brother finally got all the gear on, including the jacket, he actually fell over after about 3 steps it was so heavy.  Fortunately, it was also well padded.

From 9-3 everyday this past week Sister’s been at horse camp.

The instructors were great. 

The facility was top notch.

The horses had the best dispositions. 

She had a blast.

Throughout the week the campers not only had a chance to ride but they also learned about all sorts of “horse-y” things (parts of horse, types of bits, names of equipment, how to groom a horse, etc.)

Today the girls put on a little show for the parents.  Besides being the youngest, Sister was the only one who hadn’t taken any lessons before camp started.  I was really proud of how hard she worked to catch up.

( I’m not that great with the video setting on my camera but you get the idea.)

On Thursday our local homeschool group met for blackberry picking.  We did not go with them.  We tried but Little Miss Wake-Up-Every-Hour-Of-The-Night made for a grumpy and not very together Mom Thursday morning.  Also, Dad works from home on Thursdays and tends to make breakfast for everyone to eat … together.  He cooks an awesome meandering sort of breakfast that’s great for drinking coffee and having conversation ~not so great for getting three kids out of the house.  Sometime around 8:30 we realized that berry picking needed to be taken off the day’s agenda but that was okay because just talking about it made Dad jealous of all the fun we were going to have and consequently we planned our own family outing for Saturday.

We loaded up a little after 8 and headed to a nearby doughnut shop for nourishment.  What? You don’t consider doughnuts nourishing?  Anyway, we arrived at the blackberry farm high on sugar and ready to pick.

Does your library do a Summer Reading Program?  Ours does and we love it.  Today especially we loved it because after braving torrential rains and being too late to attend the overly full first show we got into the nearly empty second show and because of that (probably) Sister got chosen as a helper from the audience and this happened.

Sister is a cat lover to the core even so she didn’t seem to mind too much about being part of a dog show.