How do we?

Slow down enough to enjoy life? Well, we haven't figured it out yet...

We have all three kids signed up for swim team this year, Cole and Dayne on dive (their request), and while talking tonight, Geof and I realized Cole had scout day camp all week and that was going to conflict with swim/dive practice. Ugh. 

Geof: "that's it, we're officially over scheduled East coasters."  I told him I think it's become that way everywhere, that we only think it's really bad here because we're comparing it to our childhood out west. 

Gone are the days of an open and free childhood?? I hope not. 

Here's some Instagram pics of our latest adventures. I've had an itching to explore the western side of Va ever since I hiked with the young women in our ward a few Saturdays back. It's not the Rockies or Sierra's, but the Blue Ridge Mtns has a beauty all its own. It's rich in history, tradition and culture. We camped last night 2.5 hrs away in George Washington National park. We went out there mainly to see Natural Bridge which reminded me of the arches in Southern Utah. 

     You know our kids have done too much easy camping when we show up to our more "remote" camp site and they ask where the bathrooms are. They also haven't hiked enough. We drag them all over the state exploring, but a simple walk in the woods was just too much for them! No wonder Geof isn't as excited as I am to backpack with them. However, I'm determined that it'll get easier the more we do it. 

We went to church today in Buena Vista. Only about 20 minutes from where we camped. They have SVU there--Southern Virginia University. LDS owned. Beautiful little campus nestled amongst the Shenandoah's (I probably didn't say that right). 

We show up to church looking a little raggedy-you know, camping style. I had packed Geof's church clothes the night before we left, but I guess leaving them in a basket in the hall was a bad idea-our sweet, but not so smart Phoebe cat thought she'd leave her mark on them. Not enough for me to notice when packing them in the car, only right before Geof went to put them on and they'd been baking in the hot van. Yuck. So although the rest of us were at least dressed in SuNday dress (albeit a little sloppy), Geof showed up in shorts and a hoody. I believe most of the ward mistook him for an AT hiker passing through. Ha!

And then to top off our scraggly look, we picked two ticks out of our girls' hair during Sacrament Meeting! 

We ended our day going to see Stonewall Jackson's grave (confederate army general) in the beautiful town of Lexington, VA. Lexington is the home ofWashington  and Lee University (Robert E Lee became the President of the school after the Civil War) and even more impressed were we discovering VMI (Virginia Military Institute) was in Lexington. And what a cool campus it was! It had a slightly modern, mid evil/castle look--if you can imagine. All in all, I think it made for a wonderful ending to Geof's Father's Day weekend. My kids couldn't ask for a better daddy. He adores them and makes them laugh everyday.