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I always hate getting back to work after a vacation. There’s nothing special going on there, but its been busy. Ben is going to boy scout camp for a week starting tomorrow. Me and Chloe will drive him up - its maybe 90 minutes up and 90 back. I’m sure he’ll be fine and will have a good time but its the first camp type thing he’s ever done. He seems confident and optimistic so that’s good.

Today, Gabriel and I finished making a stool for one of his scouting requirements. Then we went canoeing and that completed a second requirement. We’ve got a few more that we’d like to get done this summer and I think we can mostly get them wrapped up next week and the week after.

Chloe came canoeing with us. We had a good time on Spot pond. The weather was HOT but otherwise it was perfect. When we got home the rest of the kids wanted to go swimming at the city pool, so the whole family went. Grace show off her exceptional swimming skills and impressed her mommy.

After Ben gets back from Summer camp next Saturday we have the company picnic on Sunday. The following weekend we go camping with our friends from Maine. The family will spend two nights on the beach near Freeport, ME. Yes, that means LL Bean’s 24 hour store. Liz is thinking that will be the highlight of the trip but I think there will be a lot of good things. She’s not a big fan of camping, so I think she’s a real trooper for going along with it.

After that… er… I think school is back in session.

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Smugglers’ Notch Waterparks

Well we got back from Smuggler’s Notch about a week ago. The vacation turned out well. Ben returned from his overnight safely. On Wednesday we went up to Rumrunner’s Hideaway - a manmade lake that is a short hike from one of the ski lodges. The trouble is, the lake is at the top of a nearly-vertical slope. It was some significant effort for us all to climb up there. It was hot but beautiful. I took some pictures you can see here.

The lake was a lot of fun for about an hour. They had a large trampaline that had these cool inflatable legs sticking out from it. A kid would sit on the end while a big dad, such as myself, would jump on it. This caused the little kid to be launched 10′ or 20′ in the air! Ben was doing this when he hurt his foot. We think that he was sitting on his foot and when he got launched it hyper-extended his foot.

In any case, it hurt him so bad that the life guards had to call security to drive up and fetch him. He was in a lot of pain and it was really very sad. Liz stayed with him while the rest of us hiked back down the mountain.

In another hour or so we were able to take him 10 miles away to the nearest clinic in Cambridge, VT. They were very nice there and took x-rays and examined him. The doctor predicted that in five days he should be right as rain.

Although this meant he should be able to go to boy scout camp the rest of his time at Smugg’s was shot. The next day we decided not to send any of the kids to their day camp. Instead we took all of them canoeing on the Lamoille river with us. Afterall, Ben just had to be able to sit down for two hours.

In my canoe was Liz, Chloe, Grace and myself. After about 2 minutes the canoe kind of turned around and lazily bumped in to a rock while spinning and it tossed us out. The rest of the trip was kind of uneventful.

We came home on Friday and had a good drive home. All in all, it was a good trip and my folks got to spend some quality time with us and the kids. I hope they had as good a time as we did.

Tags: Uncategorized by Private Idaho
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