Joel's venture!

Joel ventured out camping with the kids again this summer. Last year he took Elijah and Abigail separately, but this year he took both together along with Brandon Schmidt and his daughter and son. The kids were oh-so-excited to go camping, it was all they talked about the whole week before the actual trip.

They all squeezed in to the Schmidts suburban along with Elijah's ride-on tractor on the roof and ventured up to Mt. Hood. I wasn't along for the adventure, so Joel should really be doing this post to tell the story, but I have a feeling that just won't happen, so here's the cliff notes version, via Abigail and Elijah.

Abby says she stayed awake all night. Not sure that's actually the case, but anyway. : ) She stayed up very late and it was a fun adventure for her. She and Julia got their own side of the tent with a wall, so it felt like they were in their own tent together. They took the kids on a "night" hike, a bit more like a "dusk" hike, but felt like "night" to the kids and it was exciting! Elijah had a blast driving his tractor on all the rugged terrain, so his little boy love bucket was full when he came home!

I put Hannah in the seat so I could get a couple photos of the kids before they ventured out and couldn't resist snapping a photo of her...