The Hoefer family gathered at the Coralville lake mid July for a week of camping, swimming, boating and plain old having fun The kids and I were out there most of each day and Dan joined us after work. We were even able to stay at the campsite a few nights thanks to my dad borrowing a camper from some friends.
Grandpa brought all of our old bikes out to the campground. Eric loved turning the peddles and watching Grandpa fix them. I got to take a spin on my old banana seat bike. I guess there's not any pictures of that.
This boy is fearless on the playground. He climbs all the ladders, etc. and loves the slides.
Drake wasn't too sure about taking a nap in the pack 'n play so he got lots of snuggle time with mommy out at the lake.
Getting some time with daddy and staying out of trouble.
We tried using the bouncy seat to keep the babies out of trouble. There are so many things to stick in your mouth when you're camping.
We also tried keeping them on this blow up raft but that only worked so well.
The babies. There was a three week old that didn't make it and two more on the way at the time.
My kids had lots of fun playing with my cousin, Jonathan. He's currently in school for elementary education.
Sylvia loved playing with her cousins and digging in the dirt.
I planned a few activities for the kids to do to help fill the time. Here they are putting their nature collections onto contact paper.
Here they're stringing Fruit Loops onto yard and making necklaces.
Eric ate his Fruit Loops off the yarn before we had a chance to make it into a necklace.
The adults were able to fill the time without me planning cute activities for them.
Evan and Ben celebrated their birthdays while we were all together.
Eric was one of many who enjoyed the yummy cake.
Sylvia got to spend the night in a tent with Grandpa. It stormed that night and she was so proud that she had stayed in the tent during the storm and wasn't afraid. A few of us were up in the middle of the night cleaning up our campsite before the rain hit. We'd gotten so used to no rain this summer.
Testing out the gate on his bed in the camper.
Cleaning up after our night to do dinner.
Heading to the beach for another day of fun.
Even Drake likes to splash around in the water. He got to go for a swim after a fish jumped on my mom and she tossed him into the water! She may never live that one down.
Sylvia is becoming quite the swimmer. We were taking swimming lessons that week so she got lots of practice.
Eric likes to dig on the beach and enjoys the wather some but not as much as the other two.
Playing in a hole with Noah.
Me and my boys at the beach...right before Eric fell asleep eating goldfish crackers.
What camping trip would be complete without s'mores. I had to remove Eric from the assembly table because he was eating all the marshmallows. He also figured out how to help himself to the "lenomade" that week.
A beautiful sunset I stopped to get a picture of on my way home one night.
My grandma and her 6 kiddos.
For some reason my dad thought "make a funny face" meant growl at the camera.
The Hoefers. We're only missing 13 people in this picture.
