Cribbs Half Dozen: End of Summer Blast

We like to take a little time to enjoy our family before the school year starts. In years past, we would spend a day at a local pool. This year, we decided to take an adventure and go to Holiday World. For those of you not local, it's an amusement park located in Southern Indiana -- about 2 1/2 hours away. We'd decided we'd "grown up" and were ready for a bigger adventure! After talking with several friends, we opted for a 2 day trip with an overnight at a campground right next to the park where you can rent RVs. Being a family of six presents some problems when renting hotel rooms -- we either need a suite or adjoining rooms, so an RV accomodated all of us nicely.

The campground was ginormous! They also have a lake where you can fish. Since all of our children received fishing poles a few years ago, this was a prime opportunity to get some use out of them. Let me just say, fishing with four young children is hard work!! Thankfully, I had lots of experience as a child so I'm not squeemish about baiting the hook or taking the fish off the hook. It was the first time for all except Jonathan.

I'm not sure if it was beginners luck or we had found some hungry fish, but the first time Elizabeth (it was really me!) cast out, she got a fish!! We were so excited!!

I spent the majority of time while at the lake, going from child to child, baiting their hooks and helping them cast out. Again, not sure if it was beginners luck or if we found another non-experienced fish, but Matthew snagged a pretty good sized bluegill on his line!

Earlier this summer, we had another opportunity to spend the night in an RV. All summer, our kids were on the lookout for them everywhere we went! We knew this was going to be fun!!

What camping trip is not complete without a fire and s'mores?!? I have repeatedly told David's parents how thankful I am that they camped alot for family vacations when David was a little boy. In my eyes, camping with small children is a whole lot of work! I don't dislike camping, but I don't think it would be an enjoyable time for me -- hence, for no one! This worked out to be a perfect compromise!

David and Caroline spent some special time together watching the fire.

The kiddos loved that they still got bunkbeds! Matthew felt big up on the top bunk!

Our kiddos just love hanging out with Daddy! I couldn't resist this special memory! We did laugh at some of the "professional campers" who were setting up their satellites. Guess they need to have connection to the world through TV even in the great outdoors! They did have Wi-Fi access all over the campground as well!

Enjoying the s'mores!

Sweet brothers and best friends! Matthew ADORES Jonathan. Most days, I think Matthew thinks he's 6 just like his big brother!

Getting ready for day 2! We did the dry rides the first day at Holiday world (and I didn't take my camera....grrrr!) The second day, we did a few of the rides before the water park opened.

Home sweet camper!

We spent alot of time in the Christmas rides, which were perfect because Caroline was just under the height requirement so they could all enjoy the rides together. Matthew was tall enough that he was able to ride all of the bigger rides with an adult. This had to be one of Caroline's favorite rides. It was a drop ride. Jonathan's face is priceless!

Our little future 'horse rider' was in heaven with this ride! I think she probably rode it 20 times -- no exaggeration!!

We were so proud of our big kids -- especially Jonathan! As we were riding the kiddie rides, I noticed there was no line for the Raven -- the smallest of their rollercoasters. So, I rode it by myself to see if it would be do-able for the kids. It's a wooden rollercoaster with 3-4 good hills. Jonathan and I are the only ones able to say we rode it twice!!

Matthew was a hoot on this ride. He'd keep peeking his head over the side as they'd pass us in Santa's sleigh. They pretended that when they pushed the button in the middle of the steering wheel they were dropping presents.

This made me laugh as Caroline has these long legs so it wasn't as fun for her to ride this, but she was so sweet to ride with her little sister. Caroline made the horses look so tiny!

The boys loved this one as they made sure they got in a plane that had two guns! It's a futile effort to prevent boys from playing 'guns'...

Queen of the pool! This year, Elizabeth did a 180 when it comes to being in the water! She used to prefer to just dip her feet in to the water, but this year, she was not afraid.

We like to refer to Matthew as Mr. Fearless -- which made it a bit challenging with him! His favorite was body surfing in the wave pools. I don't have pictures of this because it kept both of us busy making sure no one drowned!!

We tried a few of the bigger water slides, but really spent a majority of the time in this Splash Land area. Perfect for our kids as it was fenced in and well lifeguarded. Keeping track of 4 kiddos is no easy task, not to mention when one of us was usually taking someone to the bathroom. The park offers free drinks, which is a nice perk, but made for lots of bathroom trips!

Our big kids. We didn't really ride the Wildebeest.....shhh

Not to be outdone....the little two!

We opted to put the kiddos in their jammies before we headed home. It was a good idea too as Matthew fell asleep in the van. He did remarkablely well for going without naps for the two days. Jonathan managed to get himself in the house when we got home, but sat down on the couch and fell asleep!

We did several other outings while back in Indianapolis. We spent a day at the State Fair -- but I forgot my camera! The kiddos love the 'Little Hand on the Farm' area, Pioneer Village and looking for a friend's 4-H entries. We also got to see a 2 hour old baby calf at the nursery. We all got milkshakes at the dairy barn on the way out -- YUM!

We normally go to Rascal's for go-karts, but we opted for Incredible Pizza instead as we had several gift cards. We also get credit for report cards for the older kiddos. We played lots of arcade games and the kiddos ended up with some great prizes (translation: Junk!)

Our other big event that took place over our End of Summer vacation was teaching Jonathan to ride a two wheel bike! We loaded up all the bikes, helmet, pads and sunscreen and headed to the school. We found this was the perfect place for teaching them to ride as there is a long straight track behind the school.

Matthew has graduated up to the tricycle! We joked that we should have brought another bigger bike for him as he'd probably pick up riding a two wheeler much earlier than any of the others.