Looky, Looky Who Can't Have Cookies!

Well, crunchy cookies that is! Soft cookies would be fine.. 

So I think the lad is ready for 6th grade, freshly shorn and some new braces!  I think he's adorable!

Look closely and you'll see that every other "brace" is either pink or yellowish-green.

Caleb RongBo's Adoption Camp

Friday, August 5th, we were due in Ashland Nebraska to pick up our sweet little Chinaman at adoption camp. 

Last year, I took him to the "day camp" to see if he thought it was cool and something that he might want to do the next year, but for all five days.  He liked it last year and I think he liked it even more this year when attending from Monday afternoon thru Friday afternoon!  

My hope was, he would be excited to see us.  He was.

He would then declare that he wanted to stay there forever.  He did.

And then he would crawl into our vehicle and verbally vomit up his days at camp in such a rapid fashion that we thought it would never end.   And, he did!

Just exactly the same as Robby's first Riverside Lutheran Bible Camp experience!

 

Not many photos from today's camp.  This is the final ceremony where the four groups get up and do their skits that they've been rehearsing.  Obviously, Calebbers group.

Part of the skit...

After a trip to Beertopia, we headed to the Old Market area of Omaha and more specifically the Thomas Mangelson art gallery.  A slightly fudged...  errrr...  artisitc pic of Robby since I had my stupid finger in front of the camera.

St. Louis, December 2015... I Forgot, Part I

So how does one go from Mid-July back to December for a post?  

Well, I'll tell you how.

I was putting away laundry on this fine Sunday morning and I was placing my Steven Jackson Rams jersey on the best hanger I own, when it occurred to me, "hey!  I might be able to get St. Louis Rams jersey's pretty cheap right now!".  

My fig'runs are based on the fact that they are now the Los Angeles Rams and there are probably a gazillion items of St. Louis clothing that was already printed up and now has to go.

Then I thought, "hmmm...  I wonder if I ever did a blog post from our St. Louey trip last December?".  

And that brings us current on how my feeble mind works.

This is the view from our Hotel Room, an hour or so before sunset.

The same view well after sunset.  I had to dry condensation off of the window and then take the picture, hence the reason it's a bit blurry. 

This is in the old court house where you had to get tickets for the Gateway Arch since they're doing a very extensive remodeling around the base of the arch.  They had a POD from the arch in there to show the size of them and whatever else.

This is the dome of the of the old court house.  I couldn't get right in the middle like I wanted to because of some junk they had sitting there.  Oh sure, I could have tried moving said junk out of the way but I think the armed guards would have frowned upon that activity.

3 of my favorite people at one of my favorite attractions!

On one side of the pod, we have "Crazy" Caleb and his tag team partner, Mama Chaos!

And in this corner?  Those other two guys...

Up top, obviously looking out the East side of the arch since you can see the mighty Mississippi.

Again, three of my favorites.

Calebber and Robby with the Old Court House dome in the background.

And of course, the obligatory shot of the Edwards Jones Dome where the Rams will contest the Arizona Cardinals on the next day.

The next day...  we're all except for Mama, dressed in our Steven Jackson jerseys and ready for grid-iron fun.  This is right outside of the coffee shop at our hotel. 

The powerful and attractive Johnny Hekker donning the number 6 jersey.  He's the Rams' punter and quite frankly, one of the few bright spots on the team the last couple of years.

Robby and Caleb ready for some action!!

So, that's part one of our trip.  Part two will cover our time at the City Museum, which was awesome!

Fourth Of July

Our annual 4th of July pic by the corn. Knee-high by the 4th of July apparently ain't what it used to be!  The corn is TALL!!

This was taken in our backyard.  The beauty of having corn planted there every other year is that when it gets tall like it is this year, it provides us shade earlier in the evening as the sun sinks behind it.

Our neighbor Mike took a bit of side angle shot in an attempt to cut the glare from the aforementioned sun.

That's all I have to say...  okay, not really, but it's all I have time for at the moment.  Happy belated 4th of July to American's and an extra special cheer for freedom for the "Brexiters"!   Good on'ya!

Summer 2016, Post 4 - Riverside

Another year of Bible camp is in the books!  This year the camp saw about 180 campers during the week.  I think Robby's first year was well over 200 as was evidenced at the worship service that the parents can attend.  It was packed with people standing in any open spots.  This year had lots of empty seats but the kids were LOUD!!

Caleb was an Alpha camper this year, his first at Riverside.  The Alpha campers either camp from Sunday to Tuesday, or like Calebber, from Wednesday to Friday. This was his cabin (Aaron, on the right) complete with a basement with showers shared with the other cabin.

Robby was in the Apostles cabin which is barely visible in the photo.  It's down at the very end, towards the left side of the pic, visible only betwixt two trees.

Robby's making a grand entrance for the final worship program.

And Caleb's grand entrance.

The camp counselors sang Good, Good Father together this year.  It was beautiful!!  Robby's cabin mates had their arms around each other's shoulders and swayed back and forth thru the entire song.

Robby's cabin mates and some of the things they wrote about him. It's hard to read, but one of his counselors wrote: "What a blessing you have been to our cabin. I want to thank you for your constant attentiveness and curiosity about the Bible and God's Word".  The other counselor wrote, "You have had awesome questions this week in Bible study.  Thank you for your curiosity and starting interesting conversation. Your humor and personality have brought a lot of positive energy to Apostles cabin this week".   Can't beat that!

Caleb's cabin mates.  His counselors absolutely LOVED him and told me that he was amazing as a cabin mate as he would not let any of his mates NOT have fun!  They said they have never seen a kid who smiled constantly.  That's my boy!!

And so it goes.  When I first saw Caleb, he stressed that he was DEFINITELY going for the full 5 days next year.  He has 5 days of adoption camp coming up in about a month, so we'll see how he feels after that.  He also said he's less nervous about adoption camp after attending Riverside.

Summer 2016, Post 3

Another post documenting the busy summer that the boys are having.  

Last Saturday, they were invited to tag along with some friends of ours who had another friend camping at Lake Ahquabi State Park.  They spent pretty much the entire day there and we received the occasional update by photo.
 

Caleb volunteered to be the official dog-sitter for a while.  Again, I am amazed at how far the boy has come in the last four years.  The last post had a pic of him hugging Shadow, and now dog-sitting for two dogs he had never met before!

A little later in the day when the varmints were getting tired!

Time for the boat ride!  Caleb said that Curtis let him drive the boat.  Scary!!

And so on it goes...

Summer 2016, Post 2

***Update***  - I am NOT setting the font this small.  I change it to it's normal size, click update which is what publishes the post for all to see, and when that happens, it's changed back to small font...  ***End Update***
 

Camping is hard work... and sometimes ridiculously frustrating when you have kids who think that life returns to "normal" the second that you pull into the driveway upon returning home.   No-sir-ree...  it goes on for hours after that with laundry, putting crap back away and so on.  No matter, it was a fun weekend and a nice get-a-way from all of the recent happenings that were not so pleasant for the Pleasant Hillians.

 

Camping at the Des Moines West, KOA a bit Southwest of Adel, IA.  We camped out with my cousin Kay, her husband Matt and their two boys Adam & Logan (jumping into the pool with Robby). 

This was happening on the other end of the pool.  Mr. Cautiouswater, Calebber McCheese easing his was in.  It's notable that he's been swimming since then in both a lake and the neighbors pool.  He's getting there if you are a longtime reader and remember this post!!

A photo collage taken by one of our visitors, my sister Doris.  She arrived with her friend Dave and his dog Shadow about the exact same time as my aunt and uncle, Joyce & Larry Schmitz got there.  Much fun was had and much food (and beer) was consumed...  by others.

Calebber on one of the rentable John Deere "things".

That is Momma and Calebber on their riding mobiles!

My view from the hammock shortly before an afternoon nap.

Three of the four lads, with an unfortunate, unnamed female, on the bouncy pillow.  I hope she's ok!

Sleepy boys in our tent.

Not quite as sleepy of boys in my cousin's cabin, watching tv.  Yes, it was allowed... once.