Our annual Nelson-Greve camping weekend and Accalia's 9th (!!!) birthday were successful. The weather was ideal for camping, and everyone loved the loop of eight sites that we reserved. It was so nice having an area just for us at the campground. It cut down on a lot of traffic, although there were still people who would drive or bike through the loop. I think sometimes they were just exploring the campground, but other times they thought they could get to the lake through our loop and discovered they were wrong.

Yesterday we were all completely exhausted. All three kids started to fall asleep on the short ride back into town, and Ella fell asleep deep enough that I carried her into the house and laid her down in bed for a nap. Cole fell asleep for a short time in the afternoon. I had really been hoping that the neighbor girls wouldn't be around yesterday - maybe spending Father's Day with their respective fathers? - because I knew how much Accalia and Cole needed that time just to decompress and do their own their. It wasn't to be, though, but Accalia did an awesome job of just telling the older girl she didn't want to play when Accalia just wanted to stay inside and do her own thing. Two of the gifts we gave Accalia were yoga related - this and this - and at one point Accalia, Cole and the two neighbor girls were all outside on yoga mats using them.

I think Cory had a nice Father's Day, too, although it was rather hard for him to just relax since we had to unload and clean up in the camper a little. Everyone agreed that we should try to get the same camping loop for next year, so we'll try to do that when we can first make reservations in November. I think we might try to avoid the actual weekend of Accalia's birthday, though. Next year Accalia's birthday and Father's Day will both be on the same day. It was kind of hard to be able to just focus on Accalia's special day or Cory's, for that matter, while so busy camping, so it might be nice to have these things on separate weekends.

I'll try to post later to share more details because there was a lot going on, including Cole's first airplane ride. Cole and Ella are up now, though, so I'd better get to them.