Scouting

 The last week of July Blake attended Scout Camp with the other Deacons in the ward.  It was really weird for him to be gone for an entire week, especially since I couldn't text/call him to see how he was.  Ashlyn said MANY times that she LOVED it and can't wait for him to move out of the house so it could be like that every day.  This is the boys a few minutes after they got back...tired, stinky and hungry.  Blake got sick the last day, so he was pretty miserable.

This past week we worked on the last few things he needed to advance to First Class before the Court of Honor at the end of the month.  One of the main things was a 10 mile bike ride at a lake outside of town using a map.  It was REALLY hot and Ashlyn was a trooper, but it would've been a lot easier if she didn't come...hind sight is always 20/20 though.

 She loved that there were lots of blackberries to stop and eat.

The other major thing we did was a last minute camping trip with about 48 hours to plan and find a spot to go...which was WAY harder than I anticipated!  I finally found a spot at Dworshak State Park and it was beautiful!

 Blake had to plan and cook all of our meals...

...and supervise the clean up too.  Lucky for him, Ashlyn thought it was fun to help!

 He also practiced his fire building skills.  Rick and I both sat back and watched to see him try and do it alone, but were shocked when he had roaring flames right away.  He threw the kindling in that Ashlyn had collected along with our Diet Coke box, lit it in two different spots and....

...BAM, huge flames!  We couldn't believe it. 

We were able to go on a small hike, swim off the boat docks...

....and of course pig out on s'mores!

 Even though it was a thrown together last minute trip we had fun and couldn't beat the view from our camp site.  Thanks Blake for needing to pass off a few last minute things to force Dad to go camping!