Days With the Duerksens

Every two years, our church gets to spend one weekend in the great outdoors at Camp Mennoscah.  This year, I took our kids along with my nephew, Ty.  Unfortunately, Chelan had wheat to sow and was unable to make it.  We made the most of it, however, and enjoyed ourselves a great deal.  We didn't really "camp" - I'm not THAT outdoorsy!  We took advantage of the camp's retreat center - complete with electricty, bathrooms, and real beds.  Oh, and a pop machine - Caiden was in awe of that one.  It was a pretty fantastic place! We had delicious food, great worship, a meaningful campfire, and the kids found plenty to do - namely, football (well, not the girls - they found other things).  The boys played football or the other popular camp game, GaGa Ball, nearly the entire time.  Football was played on the grass, in the river, even at 7 a.m. on Sunday morning!  Amazingly, no real arguments arose! I always enjoy this weekend away - even thou...

We declared last week "Cousin Week" and went to see Cale, Mace, and Ty play football.  We also watched Addi play volleyball.  Three of those events were on the same day!  I'm sure the girls feel like they have seen enough football to last a long time.  Little do they know - Caiden will be playing in 2 short years and they will have to sit through a lot more of those! We did enjoy watching each one - watching their strengths come through, watching them interact with teammates and coaches.  They are all growing up - just like our own three keep doing!  How does that happen?? Now, if only we could magically appear in California for the other cousins' sports endeavors! Addi - already an 8th grader! Ty, a 5th grader - far right Good teammate Mace, also a 5th grader - #6 Cale, an 8th grader.  #83 (white shirt)

We decided to harvest our pumpkins last week.   It was quite fun to head out to our little patch.  I guess we won't have to drive to a pumpkin patch this year - a little bit of savings for us!  The kids enjoyed finding the ripe pumpkins in their own sections.  We still have some tiny ones ripening out there, so we'll be picking pumpkins for a while!  Now, I have a lot of fall decorating to do with a lot of orange color . . .