Overnighter at White Pine

Last year Jer took Luke on his first overnight backpacking trip to White Pine Lake.  He decided to make it a yearly tradition.  Seth was a little disappointed he didn't get to go, but the hike is four miles each way carrying their stuff, so we told him he needed to be 6 like Luke was to start.  They may try some other places too.

Jer and Luke headed out a few weeks ago on a very cold, rainy weekend.  It poured nonstop Friday night and most of Saturday here, so I was kind of worried about them.  They did get tons of rain during the night...in fact Jer woke up and their whole tent site had flooded.  He said the tent bottom felt like they were on a water bed.  Luckily, we have a good tent and they didn't actually get wet inside.  Jer retrieved his shoes from where they were floating in the tent vestibule and got out and moved everything to higher ground.  He had Luke standing outside the tent in his rain coat at like 1 am while he got everything resituated.  He said Luke didn't grumble much though.  It was an adventure.

They had fun just hanging out and hiking around and then they went and found a bunch of geocaches.  Luke brought home some sweet treasures for me and his brothers.  As for me, when Jer was a lot later than we had established I started envisioning lightning strikes or something (there was tons of thunder and lightning here) and started to get really worried.  They got home just in time before I started scrambling the search party!  They had a blast though and it's nice when the boys have a chance to spend some one on one time with their dad.  (Seth had his own adventure a few weeks before on Labor Day afternoon when he and Jer headed out on the four wheeler to scout for elk.  It was also raining that day and the four wheeler started having all sorts of weird electrical problems.  I knew they would be back late that time so I wasn't even worried.  I guess it was overheating and died, and he had to pull start it...and the brakes weren't working quite right.  Sometimes it's better not to know!  We've since had that fixed and Seth's ready to go out again.  There is nothing he likes more than a motorcycle or four wheeler ride with dad.)

Here are a few pics of the adventure that Jer took with his GPS.

Jer took a picture of Luke on this same rock both years.  He sure has grown up a lot.  I put last year's picture on here for comparison.

Luke 2010 White Pine Trip.

Warning:  Bragging Follows
I don't want to devote a whole post to bragging, but since I'm already posting about Luke I'll brag him up a little here.  We had Parent Teacher Conferences on Tuesday and Luke got such an awesome report from his teacher.  It's no different from first grade, but it's still just nice to here that your child is doing well.  I know he's an amazing reader and does great with his school work, but it's nice to have his teacher tell you as well.  She also said he is a "joy" and is so "excited to learn each day" and is a "friend to everyone and everyone loves him."  I was so glad to hear those last parts.  I really want my kids to be good, nice kids and sometimes it's hard to tell from how they act around the house!  When we were leaving it was obvious that he was so proud of himself, and he told me that he is always going to get a report like that.  He really wants to do his best.  Luke is a great kid, but he can tease his brother and be a turkey so it's nice to know he is not like that at school.  He really is such a bright, funny, great kid and I'm so lucky to be his mom.  (I warned that this was serious bragging, right?)

On a funny note, two different moms from Luke's soccer team that I didn't know have come up to me and mentioned how darling they think Luke is and how they just want to squeeze him.  His teacher was also telling me that and she mentioned that she had a similar discussion with his kindergarten teacher.  He definitely does have the cute kid thing going for him.  He was blushing all over the place when his teacher was saying he was "just so cute and could be in a magazine."  I seriously think part of it's the glasses.  Well, I try not to have one of those blogs where all I do is say how awesome my kids are, but I don't even think anyone reads this anymore and I do think he's awesome...so there it is!  (Here's a little reality check though--the rest of the day we were home and there were arguments, etc. I just had to keep reminding myself of all the praise he got for his good behavior at school.  He's no angel, but he's a pretty great kid.)  In general, my kids get along great, but they also fight like brothers.  They spend hours playing together, but they also tease and torment.  If there is anyone out there who has same sex children, close in age, who has a super peaceful home all the time...more power to you!