We're Still Here! Really, We Are!

June always seems to go by in a big blur. The boys finished up school on the 18th. They both had great years. Austin's teachers mentioned at how much he has grown (maturity wise) since he started with them in 1st grade. Jacob had a few moments of being sad that he wasn't going to have his teacher again next year. She was a fantastic teacher and we are already hoping that Austin will get her in two years. June also brings Royal Family Kids Camp which usually means that I disappear for at least a week or two as I get ready for another week of doing Breakfast Club. For those of you not familiar with RFKC (though most of my family is :)) it is a camp for abused and neglected kids. They get to spend a week at camp just being kids with adults who pour the love of Jesus on them. I have been helping with the planning of a particular part of camp called Breakfast Club for awhile now. This is an activity time when the counselors go to a meeting and the rest of the staff is helping out. At our camp (there are camps all around the world) we break the kids up into 6 groups and they rotate through different activities like crafts, games, stories, and the ever popular cooking (they get to help make stuff and eat it too). This year was a great camp and things seemed to run so smoothly. The kids had a great week.

June also brought an end to pictures. The battery in my camera or its charger has stopped working so I didn't get any pictures in June. Thankfully, I found our old camera so I do have some pictures to share.


The boys and I traveled to Wenatchee the weekend of the 4th of July. My grandma had been really sick and my aunt brought her to the hospital in Wenatchee. We got to visit with her for awhile and see some relatives too. Grandma looks very thin but she seemed spunky and had fun talking with us while we were there. She is going to move to an assisted living place in Wenatchee soon (I think even this week) so she will be closer to my aunt and uncle and cousins. I am glad that she is going to be closer to family and not on her own anymore.

This past Friday, we started our "Friday Family Adventures" (I just named it that). Dean and I decided that we needed to make a point of getting out and doing fun things with the boys and since I don't work Fridays and Dean can sometimes make Fridays shorter, it seemed like a good choice. This Friday we decided to try Letterboxing again. We found all kinds of clues for boxes hidden around our area and, with the Sims, we chose to head up to Western's campus as there were 3 or 4 boxes there.


Well... we followed the clues to the first box and hunted all around the rocks but couldn't find anything. Since the clue said that the box had been hidden back in 2005 we figured it wasn't around anymore. So we set off following the clues for number two.


We found the tree that it should have been in but once again were disappointed. The tree looked as if it had been pruned so my guess was that a grounds keeper found it and didn't know it was a letterbox and got rid of it. So we hoped for a find at number three.


The kids raced up the hill, found the stump, but once again no box. Bummer! We walked around campus a little more and then decided to go pick up some food and take it to Boulevard Park. We got pizza for the kids while Toni and Jason got some Thai food for us adults. (Pad Thai...yummmmmm!) I also remembered that we had printed off clues for a box at Boulevard. Thankfully this one also included a "last found" date which was just three days before. After dinner we started looking. When we reached the end of the clues, the kids raced to where the box should be and very soon we heard Jordan yell, "Found it!"


There was a great stamp with a salmon and the name of the park on it. Unfortunately for us (the Hendricksons) we forgot to grab our log book and stamp from the car which was at the completely opposite end of the park. Oh well, we will just have to go back and refind it!

Well, we have a busy week ahead as we are going to provide respite care for a little foster girl from Tuesday through Sunday. She goes to my friends daycare and has come to playgroup here a few times. It seems like a good way for us to get our feet wet.

We hope you all are enjoying your summer!