SUMMER AFTERNOON

Summer break allows for ice cream runs on the way to piano after work...

PACK 104 FIELD TRIP

Our Pack Leaders planned a fun day at the Ocean Adventures Marine Park down in Gulfport, Mississippi as their final summer activity before school starts. It required a very early start, so we had some sweetly napping kids for the majority of the drive down there:

We started with a presentation (death by PowerPoint...) and a group activity, and then we spread out into Den groups to explore the park! There were multiple ray pools, a parakeet house, a bird show, a dolphin show, a museum, and a touch pool with surrounding terrarium exhibits. It's a small park, but they pack a lot in and we felt that it was all well kept and done nicely.

William, James, and Derrick (our Arrow of Light Den):

(Apparently Cora was still tired on the way home... after a stop for a heavy, and early, dinner at the Abita Brew Pub!)

SOUTHERN SIGNS

STRANGELY OBSESSED

James and Cora are so excited to watch the new season of Stranger Things! Problem is, they hadn't seen the first two seasons... We've had a lot of fun watching marathons this summer to get them all caught up! I'm pretty sure James hasn't drawn anything OTHER than a demogorgon in a month...

OUT AND OUTBACK

Jay's Jetta has been recalled, remodeled, and fixed and re-fixed over and over and over (yup, three trips to the specialty repair shop) the past few years (and especially the past few months). We had spent more to fix it up than it was worth and our patience was waning... Jay wasn't sure what he wanted as a replacement vehicle, so even once we decided to trade in the Jetta (back in December), it still took us over 6 months to figure out what to trade it out for... 

After test driving multiple SUVs and trucks (he definitely needed to go bigger than a sedan) and not liking any of them the way he thought he would, he turned his priority to safety, and that's when he landed on Subaru. One evening after work, we decided to head to Jackson to test drive one (because there is no Subaru dealership in Vicksburg, and the dealerships we do have don't often have any used Subarus either, and we wanted to buy used). That meant we either had to go to the dealership or order one to be delivered to someplace like CarMax (and since most used Subarus come from the far west coast or east coast, delivery fees are not cheap). The plan was to test drive the 3 different Outback models and then go home to think things over, but with the 2020 models arriving next week, the 2019 closeout sales were amazing (with the 0.9% financing deal as a clincher - our bank, nor our insurance, could do better than 3.9%!) and we couldn't walk away from a new vehicle priced lower than most of the used vehicles on the lot (and most of the used vehicles we'd found online)! 

The kids were SO PATIENT and well behaved. We were there for 4.5 hours. At one point I looked up from the negotiation desk to see Cora peeking over the kid area's wall with a question:

They also highly enjoyed the plethora of free snacks and having the TV to themselves as we waited our turn in line for financing paperwork (perhaps the longest wait, because the couple in front of us apparently had a hissy fit when things didn't go their way and deals had to be renegotiated).

Our turn went quickly (thank goodness, because they were already past normal closing time and we hadn't had dinner yet), and we ended up saving even more money because the quote they'd given us had the decimal point in the wrong place for that 0.9% financing (they'd given us the quote with 0.09% - oops), so the financial guy just kept knocking hundreds off the sticker price until our monthly payment hit below what we'd been quoted. Their customer service definitely made believers out of us, even before we became familiar with the inner workings of this amazing vehicle!

Congratulations Jay! We all love your new Gator-blue Outback!

OBBY LOVE

SECOND SUMMER SOCCER CAMP

It's hot and nobody wants to hang out at the soccer field (ok, that's not true... it's just the parents that don't want to hang out in the heat - the kids are happy to play), so the last night of soccer camp ended on a kickball note. I think the kids are ready for fall soccer!

PATCHES AND HER PET ROCK

KENNEDY GOODBYE (FOR NOW)

We headed back to Clinton again this weekend for Lauren's birthday party and a chance for one more afternoon hanging out with our friends before they move to Virginia for a year (Al is starting his PhD program at Virginia Tech and will be away for long-term training, so the whole family is packing up and heading east for an adventure!)

Goodbyes are hard and hugs are important!

We attempted to cheer the kids up after the goodbyes with Japanese food for an early dinner before heading back to the 'Burg:

WARNER TULLY JURASSIC ADVENTURE

The kids spent another week at Warner Tully YMCA Camp this summer! They chose the theme Jurassic Adventure and ended up having their camp week coincide with the arrival of Tropical Storm Barry to our local area...

After bringing James home in his swimsuit last year and learning that he only changed his clothes once the entire week, I sent him to camp with a laminated daily checklist in the hopes he'd be at least a little less gross this summer...

Before we knew it, we were down at camp for drop off day!

Getting their beds made and setting them up for another fun week in the woods!

(Cora wants me to note here that we somehow forgot to pack her blanket, so all she had was sheets, and was thus cold every night because her cot was under the AC vent. Sorry Baby Doll!)

Cora was beyond thrilled to have her best bud in her cabin, and in the bunk right above her:

Before we left, I stopped by the boy cabin to give James a goodbye hug and high-five (no kisses in front of the other boys, of course):

And then it was time to party! But I'll save that for a separate post... Here I'll just include the many photos that the camp staff posted to their Facebook page throughout the week to give parent a glimpse of what the campers were up to each day. See if you can spot James and Cora:

Cora sent us a postcard again this year, and again, James did not. Cora's must have left camp during Tropical Storm Barry, since it arrived still soggy and much worse for wear.

Cora had another friend in her cabin - Julia, our librarian's daughter, who dances with Cora at RiverPointe (they share a ballet and contemporary class). She's on the far left of this picture:

The kids told us that dinosaur day was super fun, but also a little scary... They had a dinosaur hunt, lots of dinosaur-themed games, and an "escape" type adventure where they encountered dinosaur victims in the nurse's office...

The last night of camp showed out with a beautiful sunset, and Cora and Cara got to sing in the camper talent show.

We did not beat the Hearns to pick up on Saturday morning and we almost lost Cora to their car because she didn't want to part from her best buddy and tried to be a stowaway (a common occurrence, actually). I'm glad they had such a great week together! I love their friendship (and the Hearn family!) and hope they stay friends for a very long time! (The following photos are from Sarah)

Here are pictures of the paper mache dinosaurs that the campers made over the week:

And here are the pictures that the kids took with the Go-Pro camera over the week:

(That's the copperhead Cora almost stepped on, but Cara spotted it in time, thankfully)

(Cora up on the zipline)

(James on the giant seesaw)

(Not sure why the camera says September 2017, since it was July 2019, but it's true that they only used the camera ONE day of the entire trip... They misplaced it and I had to collect it from the lost and found on Saturday when we picked them up... but hey, at least we didn't have to take James straight to the nurse's station for a festering wound and fever...)

It didn't rain ALL week while the kids were at camp, but it definitely rained a LOT. Between the tropical storm and other rain showers, Vicksburg got about 4 inches and the Port Gibson area (where camp is located) got over 5 inches.