So here is a long-promised picture of Morgan walking.  As I post this, she is 18 months today, and just this past week she really got her confidence walking, and has given up crawling for good.  I was surprised at how long it took her to get steady on her feet, because within a matter of 2 days of Jackson learning he could walk, he was off on his own.  Morgan took her time, and 3 weeks later is quite the little walker.  She sometimes gets a bit ahead of herself and goes faster than her little legs can actually carry her, so still falls down fairly often.  She currently has a semi-black eye from hitting her cheekbone on a table, but I guess that’s the life of a new walker!

When we are at camp, we pretty much spend the days outdoors - which is great when it’s “cooler” weather (in the 80s), but can be rough when it’s in the mid-90s or higher!  The kids don’t seem to mind the heat though, and Jackson especially has a good time.  The Chapman family (founders of Camp Highland) have 4 boys, the youngest of whom is 6 days older than Jackson.  So Nathan and Jackson have a good time running around together when we are all up at camp together.  I think it’s the first time he has really had a ‘boy’ friend, because most of his little friends his age are girls!

Thursday at camp is ‘campers choice’ day, where each camper chooses to go either horseback riding, rock climbing, or wakeboarding/waterskiing.  For a couple weeks I helped shuttle the horseback riders, and we took them to Amicalola Falls State Park, which is right down the road.  The first week there, we walked up the path and then 175 stairs to the bottom of the falls, and Jackson did the entire thing all by himself.  No more will we buy the ‘carry me Daddy’ routine. :)  Here he is at the top:

And running back down:

Our kids spend a good bit of time with the Wuerslin kids - Hannah is exactly a year younger than Jackson, and Adam is currently 8 months old.  One day when they were over and all putting on these hats/ears, it was just too cute, so I had to line them up on the couch for a photo shoot.  Getting 4 kids under 3.5 to actually look at the camera is virtually impossible (especially on my own), but I did my best.

I just realized my last post was from May 9th! Yikes! Lots has happened, but I don’t know how many pictures I have to show from it… so just a brief update on what is happening our lives:

Morgan: she took her first steps at exactly 17-months, May 29. Yeah! She’s still pretty tentative, and if she really wants to get somewhere, she crawls, but is trying to walk more and more. She’s also become the little tantrum-thrower. My mom says she reminds her a lot of my sister Melissa, who obviously has turned out great, but was quite a feisty and challenging kid. So we’ll see…

Jackson: Not much ‘new’ for Jackson, but I don’t know if I mentioned before how much of an encourager he is. Whenever Morgan does something new, or something difficult for her (like walking, or standing), he just says over and over “Good job Morgan, good job!” in his cute little voice. And he’ll say it to Gavin and I at times too, telling us we did a great job on something. Very cute.

Camp - Gavin spent most of the month of May up at camp getting things ready for the summer, which technically began almost 2 weeks ago when the summer staff reported for duty, but officially begins on Monday when the first group of campers arrive. He’s been pretty swamped with all the things to be done at camp, but we are both hoping that his late nights and early mornings will taper off as camp gets into the swing of things and all the projects are completed.

The kids and I went up there for 3 days last week. I’ll have to post a picture of our new ‘home’  - it got delivered last week - we’re basically going to be living in what would normally be a classroom trailer at a school, complete with a whiteboard. On Friday an electrician got it hooked up, so we will actually have a/c (yeah!), and we have yet to get the plumbing and sewer hooked up, but hopefully very soon. I nailed curtains to the ceiling to divide it into 2 rooms, with a small room for G and I, and a larger one for the kids, also to be their playroom, and an escape from the insane heat and humidity (there’s nowhere else at camp to go that has a/c). I hope it works well… we’ll be there a lot!

Gavin hired a summer staff at camp to basically serve as a full-time nanny between us and the Chapman family (Bill Chapman is the camp founder, and we have known he and his wife Betsy for many years - in fact he did our wedding) and their 4 boys, the youngest of whom is just 6 days older than Jackson. So the way our week will work is this: Gavin and the kids will go to camp on Sunday, arriving in time for dinner (it’s an 1.5 hour drive to Ellijay). I’ll stay back and go into the office on Mondays and half-day Tuesdays, then head up there after lunch on Tuesdays. Martha, the summer-staff nanny, will be primarily responsible for the kids for that time, although Gavin will be there and around. Then the kids and I will most likely come back on Fridays, just so that they can spend 2 nights in their own beds. Gavin will return home Saturday afternoon, we’ll have 24 hours at home together as a family, then do it all over again. Phew. I’ll let you know how we’re doing come the end of July.

We do have a couple weeks where we won’t be at camp - one week I’m going to visit my parents with the kids, the week of July 4th is no camp, and Jackson will be going to a toddler art camp at our church one week. So we will have some breaks, but it will be a pretty hot and tiring summer, I’m sure.

So, this turned out longer than planned, but just wanted to put at least something up here. I’ll get back with more pictures of Morgan walking, our trailer-home at camp, and whatever else I can come up with.