Porter Family Camping

Last weekend we headed to Brown County Indiana for a mini family reunion with my family. Besides the heat (which doesn't agree with a 7 month pregnant woman) it was such a great time! My sister, Amanda, and her family came in for it, James (my brother) flew in from BYU and my other bother Brad and his wife Jessica were there. And of course Hannie. Tim even joined in on the fun (what would a family activity be without Tim?) It was relaxing and laid back. Just how we like it! The first night there we had a poetry recital. We all worked on memorizing a poem. Bennett (2) stole the show with his one line in their family poem/play when he was the grumpy bear and said 'All I want is a quiet place to sleep!' It was SO cute. The kids all did such a great job and remembering their poems.Landon used a blank piece of paper as a prop, since his poem was about an invisible picture. Porter did such a great job reading his, which was quite long for a little guy!James wrote his own poem and Brad really got into his poem about two boxes!! If forgot to take pictures of everyone older than Brad. But there were some great poems. Including Grampy reciting 'The Touch of the Master's Hand'!

Of course there was plenty of marshmallow roasting and just hanging out!The next day we had a 'Minute to Win it Game'. It was pretty fun! If you haven't seen this show, everyone has just one minute to complete each challenge. Some of the challenges I made be solo challenges, and then others were ones where someone from each team would compete against each other. Casey and Steven competing in a balloon contest. Jessica and Casey competing in a cookie eating contest.Hannie making an awesome soda pop tower!James and Jessica working on keeping a feather up with only their breath. Amanda and Hannie putting together a cereal box puzzle.Brad had to stack golf balls, and his other challenge was to kick his shoe onto the picnic table from 9 or maybe 15 (I can't remember) feet away. He was so funny. He said 'I'll only need one shot at this. I was about to pee my pants when he took 45 seconds of his 60 seconds to get it on!!Dad doing a challenge with cups. Mom, trying to knock bottles over with a ball attached to her head with panty hose! Steven had to shoot down a can pyramid with rubber bands, and Amanda had to stack 5 apples.Casey had to try to catch this slinky on his forehead, in a minute of course. This was the only challenge people couldn't complete. But I think it may have had something to do with the way I had rigged the slinky to the headband.Steven and Casey had to separate out M&M's by color. And Amanda and James had to blow up a balloon and use the air in the balloon to knock 15 cups off the bench.Mom and James had to place two pencils on the back of their hand, flip them up and catch them in the air. Then add two more pencils, until they got up to 12 and caught them all. Mom was AWESOME at this game!Steven and Tim had to get 125 'steps' on the pedometer attached to their head band just by shaking their heads around. That was funny to watch!!Tim bought the kids these really cool 'Fuzzoodles'. Kind of like Mr. Potato head, but with different fuzzy pipe cleaner type things that the kids can shape into different monsters, animals, people, whatever! Landon LOVED them. Tim also spoiled the kids with candy and a whoopie cushion, which was a HUGE hit with the kids (and some of the adults)!Thank goodness for Nana! I told Landon that we were celebrate his birthday when we were camping with the family. Well, being the thoughtful mom that I am, I forgot to make a cake to take!! So, the day we were going to leave, I was going to make sugar cookies and get all sorts of different color icings and candies that the kids could decorate. But, once again, I forgot and ran out of time. Luckily mom was thinking, and when she ran to get some groceries she picked up a birthday cake for Landon. He was pretty excited about it!! Thanks for saving the day Nana!
The kids of course wanted to do a sleep over. This was the girls at 1:45 in the morning.This was the boys.And here was Grant. Wide awake eating banana bread. He didn't sleep well at all while we were there. Every night (well, it was only two nights, but still!) he was awake from about 11-2. And since I didn't really get a nap while we were there, I was a bit fiesty by the last day.

And because it's getting late, and the pictures have decided to stop uploading, I'll end here. I'll hopefully add more pictures tomorrow.