The Clarkenhovens.....: Catch Up ~ Not to be confused with Ketchup!

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This will be a long post! After taking so long to get my Hawaii pictures up, everything else I was doing was put on the back burner.

I will start with Twilight Camp that the girls attended July 14th - 18th for Girl Scouts at Hovander Park. Each of my girls has been attending since Kindergarten and it has definitely become a staple of our Summer.

I am able to go out a couple of afternoons during the week to help out and one day I got off work a little early and was able to take some pictures before I went to help. I got home and realized that I had taken over 300! What did we do before digital cameras?

I am adding a few of my favorites!

This goat was so funny he kept wanting to eat my wedding ring (and probably my hand along with it after he was done!).

This was the Mama Peacock and her babies! I just love the crown on her head. Usually you can see the Peacocks roaming around the park yelling but I wasn't able to find any this time.

I found some bees hard at work on the Lavendar.

Lots and lots of Daisies!

This reminded me of the things that we used to put in our bird cage as a treat for the Birds.

Here's my baby!

Every year they bring out some eggs and the birds continue to hatch each day. The kids get to come and check out the progress throughout camp. This year they had some chicks, ducks and turkeys in the aquarium.

Here's my other baby!

This is what happens when you let Adults have S'mores! This is my good friend De Anna's mom. They lead a unit at camp every year.

Here's Emily again!

Katie's unit was responsible for taking down the Flag one evening.

This is what happens when you've been an Adult in charge all week! Shawna is Katie's Leader during the year.

Katie packing up her Dunk Bag. (Here's the definition for dunk bag from the GS Website: Dunk bag~A mesh cloth bag with a drawstring, used to sterilize and hang dry eating utensils when washing dishes.)

Emily again! She has a dirty face so she must be having a great time!!

A sunflower that I found.

Mt. Baker in the back ground.

The main barn in the Park. It makes for a very pretty picture!

Gord was practicing taking pictures of people running for his upcoming race this weekend!

After camp was over we had a dinner on Saturday for my niece Sarah and my nephew Christopher. They were leaving to head back to Germany the next day. Their school starts back in only a couple of weeks!

Here's one of all of the kids.

And of course once you make them be nice and serious for a picture you have to let them have a crazy one too!

Sarah and Christopher by themselves.

Earlier in the day, Gord and I (sans kids!), rode our bikes to the Raspberry Festival. They have lots of 3 on 3 Basketball tournaments and lots of Raspberries and Ice Cream. One of Gord's co-workers was playing on this team.

We ran into Cheryl and her family there. Her mom Judy was visiting from California and she loves coming up for the Raspberries every year!

They also enjoyed eating some Poffertjes.

Our next event was Emily's Bridging Ceremony for Girls Scouts on July 22nd. Emily is finished with Brownies and will be a Junior Girl Scout next year.

She is bade farewell by the Brownies on one side of the Bridge and walks across receiving some flowers and is greeted by the Juniors on the other side which just happens to be her sister who forgot her vest!

This is Emily's Leader, Maggie.

This is the group of girls that she Bridged with.

This is Emily and Hailey. Hailey has been in Girl Scouts with Emily since Daisies in Kindergarten. Hailey and Emily are great friends!

I just love this picture below. They both just spontaneously broke out in laughter.

On Thursday night Gord and I were sans kids again (what's up with that?). I have been hanging out on a Photography website lately and they have assignments that you can take part in if you'd like. This weeks assignment was to go 10 minutes from your house, be it by bike, walking or car and stop there. You are then to take a picture of whatever you see in that location.

We walked to a new subdivision by our house that has a little walking trail by it and this is what I found to take a picture of.

Every so often it becomes necessary for me to go into my children's rooms and dig them out. Yesterday was Emily's turn! I can't believe that I'm going to post these pictures but here it goes.

Before