Family Fun Adventures

Our family was able to take 1 last adventure before Kevin started his Air Force Adventure.  We decided camping would be a wonderful family fun adventure :)  None of the boys had ever been camping before.

We almost didn't go.  The campground we wanted to go to was closed due to renovations :(  Several of the campgrounds near us were closed for renovations.  We finally located a campground but it was a couple of hours north of us.  We decided what the heck.  This was our last family fun adventure as a whole family~ why not.  We went to book our adventure and all of the family camping was booked :(  The only camp spots they had left were primitive camping. Huh??  No bathroom, no electricity and no running water near by.  Oh boy.  It's only for the weekend, right?  Let's see how this turns out :)

Our camping spot

Our tents that are connected by a tunnel- isn't it cute :)

When we arrived at the camp spot, we were told that the bathhouse was a several mile walk and that primitive camping did have a solar outhouse.  I have never heard of a solar outhouse.  It turned out to the one of the nicest outhouses I have ever been in.  It was so clean and smelled nice :)  We were totally shocked :)

We settled in and cooked our dinner.  It was tasty.  Something about the taste of cooking on an open fire- Mmmmm.  And of course, after dinner~ Smore Time :)

The next morning we went hiking.  We only thought we would do a couple of trails.  We were so impressed and wowed by the trails, we did them all.  So beautiful and so serene.  And came across this little fellow above who just wanted to sun bathe.  Luckily, he was very far away :)

We went to the museum at the state park and learned about the history of this state park as well as other parks around.  The curator told us of a gentleman who whittles out in the open field in front of the museum.  I am not sure if these are his work, but they are amazing.

Deep in thought :)

The boys had fun being boys and climbing trees :)  The above picture was the sunset on our last night.

I am so glad we took the chance to make such wonderful memories as a family.  And to think, we almost passed up on such an amazing opportunity.  We are so thankful, we took a chance.  Primitive camping ended up being a wonderful thing for our family.  We went over to the family camping area and they are so close together with no privacy.  Our campsite was surrounded by trees, they call it a vegetation buffer and we were quite a ways from our neighbor- loved it :)  We look forward to camping again as soon as the weather cools down :)

I can't wait to see where our next family adventure takes us :)

Family Fun Saturday Adventure

I was looking at the pictures on my phone and I discovered some cool pictures of the last time we went to CMON~ The Children's Museum of Naples, which was way back in May :(

Since we have a yearly pass, we try to visit the Children's Museum at least once a month.  We have been so busy in June and July that we haven't been back since May :(

I don't want to bore you with the same pictures of the same museum that we try to visit on a monthly basis.  In my first CMON post, I mentioned these really cool Keva Planks.  They are so neat.  Usually what happens when we go to CMON, Nathan like to visit the upstairs older children, no parents allowed section, while little Michael likes to play downstairs with all the exhibits.  One of us waits for Nathan while the other accompanies little Michael on his journey downstairs.

This visit, I stayed upstairs waiting on Nathan.  I walked around and looked at the summer camp info.  I wondered around and looked at the neat artifacts that they have.  And then I decided to play around with the Keva planks.  I decided to see how tall I could stack them.  I started stacking and noticed people walking by and watching me to see how high I could get them to go.  Evidently, stacking Keva planks is quite the attraction :)

Well, I got as tall as my 5 foot 2 self could reach:

I then called my hubby to see if he could come upstairs and see how high he could go, since he is over 6 feet tall :)   By this time, we had people coming over and telling us that we were doing an awesome job and were taking pictures :)  Hubby got as far as he could reach:

Even little Michael decided to build his own creation:

After we could go no higher and were still waiting on Nathan, we decided to get creative and made this:

I think it is really neat and cool looking.  I love these blocks :)  Nathan got done, saw our creations and thought they were the coolest things ever :)  We went downstairs and enjoyed our time.  Before we left, we ventured upstairs just to see if our creation was still standing.  Sadly, it was not.  It had gotten knocked over :(  Oh well, I am going to have to think about our next creation to build when we go back :)  If you have a chance you should visit the Keva Planks website and look at all the creations that can be made :)  You really need to watch the Keva World Record Tower- so cool :)

I can't wait to see where our next Family Fun Saturday Adventure takes us :)

Saturday Family Fun Adventure

Our Saturday Family Fun Adventure took us back to the Children's Museum of Naples also known as CMON :)

There was still so much to do and see from our last visit.  The exhibit room had changed to the Blue Exhibit from the Space Exhibit and the museum was having special Earth Day festivities.  The boys couldn't wait to go :)

The Blue Exhibit

An Igloo

What is better than an Igloo?  A real ice wall- so cold and so neat :)

You can go inside this shell and learn all about underwater animals

The Library- so nice and quiet :)

A tree that the kids can climb inside and leads to a neat tree house

Looking for the QR code for the QR Scavenger Hunt

Still looking for the QR code.  Nathan brought in help for this code

This young man was so nice and so helpful.  We learned so many things about this new Fire Truck :)

We all had so much fun.  The boys with much needed help finished the QR code Scavenger Hunt and went to collect their prize only to be told that you can't complete the QR code hunt on your own phone~ Oops.  You have to check out one of their IPads.  Oh well.  We know for next time and since there are 3 different hunts, there is plenty still left to explore :)

I can't wait to see where our next Family Fun Adventure takes us :)

Our Saturday Family Fun Adventures

It just hit me that I am so behind on my Saturday Family Fun posts- Oops :(

For this Saturday Family Fun Adventure, we knew we wanted to take the boys to do something super fun and special since hubby was getting ready to spend a week with his family back home in Virginia for a funeral.  We took the boys to a water park in Naples called Sun-N-Fun Lagoon.  Since the lazy river was closed, we got a nice discount off admission- sweet :)

Michael and daddy having a blast :)

Having fun in the pool :)

Family Falls

Shooting people with water

Turtle Cove Lilly Pad cross

The slides

Other than staying longer than we expecting, having such a great time that we forgot to reapply sunscreen and getting a super nasty sunburn, we all had a great time.  I wish it was closer.  They have different pool areas for different ages.  The boys almost talked me into a season pass but hubby reminded me how far the drive is, how we have the beach super close to us and can go to the water any time we want :)

I can't wait to see where our next Saturday Family Fun Adventure takes us :)

Our Saturday Family Fun Adventures

Our Family Fun Adventure took us to the Children's Museum of Naples also known as C'MON :)

When we arrived, we discovered 2 floors of fun stuff to do.  We decided to go to the 2nd floor and work our way down.  When we got upstairs Nathan discovered this area:

Curious Kids for ages 8-14 and No Parents Allowed.  Nathan had so much fun.  While he was discovering the Curious Kids area, we discovered these:

Keva blocks.  I have never heard of these thin stackable Keva Blocks before. We had a blast making a bridge and when Nathan got done with the Curious Kids area, he helped us with our building project.  These blocks are incredible.  If you go to the C'MON Facebook page, you can see the pictures of the incredible things people have built with these amazing blocks.

We went downstairs and had a blast with the space exhibit:

Hubby even had a blast geeking out making a paper rocket which they got to "blast off" :)

The boys even went "fishing" and caught some interesting fish and even an alligator :)

There was so much to do and see that we ended up not being able to do everything.  We will definitely be coming back to discover the rest of the museum.  We accidentally discovered 3 scavenger hunts hidden in the museum.  The boys are making plans to go back and do the scavenger hunts.

After the museum we headed over to the Naples Zoo, saw the new exhibits and went on the Primate Cruise:

We used our Red Robin gift cards to have dinner and ended up at our favorite Italian Ice & Ice Cream place for dessert.  What a way to end such a great day :)

We had such a blast on our huge Saturday Family Fun Adventure Day.  We can't wait to see where our next Adventure takes us :)

Saturday Family Fun Adventure

For this Family Fun Adventure, we decided to stay at home.

The boys still wanted to have a picnic lunch- no problem.  We spread out a blanket and had our picnic lunch on the living room floor.

After lunch, we couldn't play just an ordinary game of Connect Four

 We had to play Bean Boozled Connect Four.

Anyone know what Bean Boozled is?  In case you don't, Bean Boozled are jelly beans with a twist.  They have fun flavors like Buttered Popcorn, Caramel Corn, Lime, Coconut, etc.  They also have quite interesting flavors such as Rotten Egg, Moldy Cheese, Skunk Spray, etc.  You have no clue what flavor you are getting until you bite in :)

The way we played was 2 players played Connect Four and the winner not only got to choose 2 beans but he/she also got to choose which 2 had to eat it :)  Boy did the boys gang up on mommy and daddy.  I have never had so many interesting flavors before :)

After this oh so interesting game, my poor tummy couldn't take anymore jelly beans.  We decided to work on some puzzles.

They actually helped each other :)

After puzzle time, I was challenged to a Skylanders Super Chargers race.

I am not good at this game and lost big time :)  You should have seen my trying to figure out the controllers~ LOL :)  We all had a great time.

We finished up the gaming portion of our Saturday Family Fun Adventure with some Trouble.

After getting beat at Trouble, I went and made pizza for dinner.  The boys picked out Honey I Shrunk the Kids for our movie night, which finished up our Family Fun Adventure.

We all had a blast and really enjoyed our day with out leaving the house except to take Christopher to work.  We are definitely going to have schedule more of these type of Family Fun Adventures :)

I can't wait to see where our next Family Fun Adventure takes us :)  Hopefully, far away from Bean Boozled :)