You’ve already seen my pictures from Haiti, and heard all about that trip…but I’ve never really put out there that the kids were on vacation during that week too!

We have some amazing friends, that when they heard I was going to Haiti for a week, asked me to send our kids there for a week to stay with them. What a thing to offer!! They have three kids of their own, and she was offering to take my 2 as well. That is one amazing mom!

Well, after making darn sure that she was serious, I left on Friday and Nathan packed them up and drove them to Wisconsin on Saturday morning.

While they were there, they went to the beach, playland at McDonalds, and the Children’s Museum. They picked peas and strawberries. They had the best time. They are still talking about it!

They also got to celebrate Evan’s birthday, which was on Thursday that week. Nathan drove up Thursday morning, and after lunch they had cake and presents.

When I saw these pictures, I told Evan that the cake looked yummy. He said “yeah mommy, and the pieces were really big too!” Oh…kids.

Thank You to our friends Margo and Jason, who not only fed and clothed my kids for a week, but sent them home with a picture book full of the activities they did while they were there. It’s one of our favorite bedtime “stories.” And I feel like I didn’t miss much when I look through it with them.

After the birthday celebration, Nathan and the kids packed up and headed south…stopping in Decorah for the night to go camping. Camping with two kids by yourself…adventurous I’m sure – probably not something i would have ever done…but the hubs is a trooper.

He had practiced setting up the tent by himself while the kids were in Wisconsin, and said he managed just fine. Except that he hadn’t attempted the rain fly by himself. Apparently, this is the hard part. I still get a good chuckle thinking about the kids sitting there watching him struggle with the rain fly for a half an hour.

What is camping without smores? Or at least the marshmallows? I love this picture!

Camping was a huge hit! Sadly, this is the only time the tent got out this summer. We had planned a few other times, but the weather (usually too hot, since it was so dry this summer) or other plans happened and we just never made it. There’s always next summer!