The Last of the Adventure Van Crew Graduating

 I can't believe the last of the Adventure Van Crew is Graduating. I am sad not to be in person to watch this one cross the field. I would definitely be inappropriately yelling your name. 

She is the sassy caboose of our group.  I can't wait to see how she changes the world. This one is the maverick and the trail blazer. You kind of have to be when you are the youngest of your siblings. 

This is the child who gave me and my best friend the silent treatment at 2 years old.  I kid you not.  I am also sure we probably deserved it too. She knew even at 2 what was for her and what was not. I have often called her the Princess of Quite A lot.  She is so creative. We have crafted together. This one is a baker extraordinaire. I need her lemon bar recipe because it is delicious.  She is a dancer and watching her dance has given me a lot of Joy. So proud of all you have done and what lies ahead. Congratulations!

Rocks with a Message and a Throw Back Thursday

I saw this article about people in Ohio painting rocks with positive messages and it made me think of  a trip to Point Whitehorn with the Adventure Crew where we found rocks with messages on them.

Adventure Crew Rides Again or Big Mail Boxes, Heart Pics, Flat Trails,Parade

Well we have been having a 4th of July Adventure Long Weekend .  We have had a slight revival in the Adventure Crew. We visited the Bellingham Farmer's Market and downtown Bellingham. We had a chance to meet up with Ms Smarty Pants aka Bird Girl and her bestie.

We spotted a GIANT mailbox.  We visited the feed store and saw the bunnies. We ate at Hanna Teriyaki

We did a switch a roo of kids and headed to Point Whitehorn.

Chuck laying on a Log

Queen of Quite of A Lot and Chuck

I personally love this 3/4 of mile trail but be prepared for the steep trail and stairs down to the beach.  We had a good time exploring

Sunday

Tree growing out of a log in Lake Whatcom

We walked the Hertz Trail but most people call it the trail around Lake Whatcom.  This trail is where the railroad ran. It is relatively flat though that was debated by The Queen of Quite A LOT.   This trail dead ends and we ate our lunch there.  It is 3.1 miles to the turn around. This is a great trail for bikes, dogs and little people. The trail even blazes under and through a tree.

We noticed a lot of people with Trek for Treasure T-shirts so we ended up GTS (googling that stuff)  This is a really cool program where participants go on 6 hikes over 12 weeks that get progressively harder.  There is a clue given at the hike to a riddle upon the completion of all 6 hikes they solve to find the treasure. This looked like so much fun.  This is sponsored by the hospital in the next county.

Monday

The bread and butter of the adventure crew has always been a parade.  We went to the Blaine 4th of July parade. We were only minus one member of our crew.  AMAZING! We sat across from Lady Liberty.

Wild Life at Whatcom Falls

Princess of Quite A Lot and Chuck

Our little summer adventure crew took a walk in the Whatcom Falls area.  We managed to see both human and animal wildlife.

 

Photo by Cheezer

 

 We saw these two immature bucks.  We also spent some time looking at the ducks in the derby pond.

  

Proof the Cheezer was with us

This is the first time I had been here and saw anyone jumping.  There were a lot of teenage boys giving it a go and one old guy.  I definitely don't have the guts to do this.  IT looked very shallow and just not a smart thing to do.  Of course, there are all kinds of signs saying don't do this.

 

 

 



31 days of Adventure - Adventure Van

 

Cama Beach 2009
Part of the Adventure Van Crew
Chucko, Bones, Princess of Quite A lot, and Cody

For a number of summers, my best friend and I have taken our combined 5 kids on various adventures and outings in her van lovingly called, "The Adventure Van". It is a lot of fun we only had one voice of dissent in all our adventuring and only on one adventure when one small child declared, " This Van Sucks".   We have hiked, visited the beach, searched for letterboxes, ate ice cream together, gone to parades and even went to a kangaroo farm.

Boys of the Adventure Van Crew
2009
Bellingham WA

Benefits of Teaming Up with another Mom for Adventures
(or why this worked so well for us)

I learned that solo adventuring with kids can be daunting.  So it helps a lot to not be out numbered. It is another set of hands and eyes,

Combining forces allowed us to go and see during the week places that normally we wouldn't do with our kids without another adult. CAN YOU SAY KANGROO FARM!?

Bones, Princess of Quite A Lot, Ms Smarty Pants

The adventure doesn't have to be expensive.  A lot of times we simply hiked and went for a cheap ice cream afterwards.

The kids really enjoyed hanging out with other kids besides their siblings.

Birch Bay Parade
2008
Adventure Van Crew

Sadly, the van is no longer and the children are older and we are down to basically to 2-3 children who are willing to take adventures. The oldest crew member is graduating from High School.

Beach See Saw
2013

I am joining the Nester's 31 Days of Writing.  Check out my entire series - "31 Days of Adventure."

Throw Back Thursday - Squires Lake (2009)

Squires Lake 2009

Back in 2009 we went on adventure with some friends in the Adventure Van.  The van is no more but the adventures live on. It was our standard operating procedure during the summer of 2009 to do these adventures .  One adventure was Squires Lake.  The most notable thing about this adventure was I dropped and broke my camera AND we thought we saw cougar scat.  We worked ourselves up pretty good about the cougar scat, too.  I promised to post pictures but I never did so without further ado 5 long years later here are the photos from Squires Lake including the now famous picture of cougar scat. I since have decided that Mrs Epi is an expert scat identifier.


Princess of Quite A Lot



Cody



Bones aka Cheezer with Charlie

Scat picture but I don't really see any identifiable scat. OH WELL

I am linking up with The Mom Creative Throwback Thursday Stories.

Mini Advetures with the Adventure Crew

The Adventure crew has been reunited minus Miss Smarty Pants.( Darn 16 year old kids and their J-O-B-S! ) The rest of us spent some time on Monday at Tennant Lake.   The boy part of our crew ran off some energy as we walked the long way over to Hovander Park and back to Tennant Lake.

sea of lily pads
Tennant Lake

Striking a Pose
Tennant Lake
Mr Bones

Artichoke in Bloom
Hovander Homestead Garden

Tuesday, we headed to Point Whitehorn.  We made it all the way to the beach and enjoyed lunch basking in the sun.  We found these rocks with messages on them. 

The kids found a tree to teeter totter on.  The kids had a good time climbing on the driftwood. There was also a beautiful heron standing on a rock.

 

The day wasn't complete without a trip to the C Shop for ice cream. There are some fabulous places for mini adventures in Whatcom County.

Washington State Parks GeoTour - #3 Camano Island & Cama Beach

We are doing the Washington State Park Centennial GeoTour Challenge as part of our summer bucket list.

This GeoTour celebrates the 100^th anniversary of Washington State Parks with 100 new geocaches in 100 parks across the state. Learn more and get a GeoTour passport and list of caches at GeoTours Washington State Parks. There are commemorative geocoin prizes for those submitting a passport showing they found 50 or 100 GeoTour caches.
 

This Saturday we attended a GeoTour event at Camano Island State Park which is basically right next to Cama Beach State Park.  I had visited Cama Beach with the Adventure Van Crew but it was a great place to revisit.  From their website: Cama Beach State Park is on the southwest shore of Camano Island facing Saratoga Passage. Cama Beach offers visitors a chance to step back in time to a 1930s-era Puget Sound fishing resort complete with waterfront cedar cabins and bungalows.

kids messing around at Cama Beach Visitor Center

I still think it would be really fun to rent one of the cabins at Cama Beach.  That is my kind of camping.  However, I really like the beach exploring at Camano Island State Park a little better. It is a rocky beach with tons of driftwood. From the parks website: Camano Island State Park is a 173-acre camping park with 6,700 feet of rocky shoreline and beach. The park provides sweeping views of the surrounding mountains and offers opportunities for shellfish harvesting.

Camano Island State Park

The Centennial Cache is basically on a trail between Cama and Camano Parks.  We found it with a bunch of other cachers.

Cama Beach Post with Adventure Van Crew. The Adventure Van Crew definitely needs to revisit.

Our GeoTour so far
Birch Bay State Park
Peace Arch

Beach and The Adventure Crew

Last week, we had a perfect beach day.  We headed there with the crew.  This rock is perfect for sliding.

Queen of Quite A Lot - love the sunglasses

Some of us waded in the somewhat chilly ocean water and playing with seaweed (Ewww!).

#1 Son

This is the only picture I took of the whole crew though far away.

Queen of Quite A Lot, Bones, #1 Son, Chuckles

It was incredibly great way to spend an afternoon.  We didn't find any Japanese trash.  We did find some agates and some beach glass.

The Full Pioneer Experience

We hung out with the Adventure Van Crew. As part of the summer library program, we got to tour some of  Pioneer Park. 

This is a real treasure in our town. Usually the 2nd graders do this as part of their pioneer unit.  The kids really enjoyed walking around the park and listening to our guide talking about how are town used to be called Jam for the mile log Jam on the Nooksack River.  They even got to see a log that someone kept from the jam. 

Chuckles examining the log

We also got into some of the pioneer building including the school room.  All the kids sat in the desks and wrote on little chalkboards with chalk.

Princess of Quite A Lot at School

On the classroom chalk board were the rules.  I love the last one that you must wash your hands and feet when entering.

The guide also discussed the teacher rules which included that teacher's must not loiter at ice cream shops. We stopped for lunch at the Golden Arches.  We even culturally enriched there as a man was playing the violin in the play area.  He was pretty good. We then headed to the Hovander Homestead Park and fed the animals, walked through the gardens, and ran through the bushes.  We got the full pioneer experience.

The Adventure Van Crew
at Paul Bunyan Garden - Hovander Park

Tie Dye or how I made myself have smurf hands

Yesterday the Adventure Van Crew did tie dye.  Both Mrs Epi and I were able to obtain very cheap tie dye kits so we decided to be the cool Mom's for the afternoon and Tie Dye with our kids.  It was actually pretty fun.  The kids got really into it. The Baker's Dozen has a wonderful tutorial on her blog on tie dying.

Queen of Quite A Lot and Bones working on their shirts

BUT  after the creating is a lot of work - lots and lots and lots of rinsing.  I should of used gloves for the wringing and rinsing.  Now I have smurf hands.  It reminds me of the blue guy Mrs Epi and I saw out and about in Bellingham.

Here are my boys final results.

Chuckles

# 1 Son

Summer Rules/ Summer Lists

School is FINALLY out for the summer.  I participated in Ali Edwards Summer Manifesto check that out here. I listed what I thought would be on our summer list.

This morning I sat down with the wrecking crew and discussed what they would like to do for the summer.  This is our decorative list.  Here is what on it:
1. See cousins
2. Beach
3. Play with friends
4. Travel Bug Race
5. Splash Park
6. Lite Fireworks
7. Dipped Ice Cream Cone
8. Bike Ride
9. Swimming
10. Hot tub
11. Adventure Van
12. Go on an Adventure
13 Library Reading Program
14. VBS

We also discussed the rules.  I think it is really important for them to come up with them in general especially in regards to electronics.  I especially like saying," You came up with that rule not me." I have done this the past couple of years especially since I have older kids.