I just want to say…I am in trouble when hormones hit this house. Tyler (bless his heart) was/is *so* excited to be starting second grade. But last night, he broke down into tears saying that he didn’t want to grow up!! Then today, I picked him up from school. We had a wonderful conversation about his day as we were driving home. We got out of the car and he had a meltdown. Complete with throwing his bookbag in the rocks, stomping, screaming, crying, and slamming doors. If this is 7, I *do not* want to see 13. Oy. The good news is, he reports that school is “good.” His teacher is “everything [he] ever wanted in a teacher.” (His words!! I swear!! It made me giggle.) He was really happy to go this morning. He looked a little apprehensive when I left him in the classroom, but I’m sure once I was gone, he was great. He told me that he now has *4* Jacobs in his class. That is INSANE!! His poor teacher. Here are some pics of my big second grader…

Now…what is this “two minute drill” I speak of?? Nothing to do with the first day of school. The “two minute drill” was what we dealt with all weekend on our camping trip. It didn’t take us very long to learn it, either. So, here’s how it went…. You watch the skies constantly. You can see trouble coming, and it’s just a matter of time. The first clap of thunder, and the two minute drill has begun. (This is when you better start putting away anything that you don’t want to be sopping wet.) About one minute after the thunder, the tops of the trees start swaying in the wind. (This is when you start herding children into the tent, taking off their shoes and covering them with plastic [the shoes…not the kids…LOL!], encouraging them to crawl in their sleeping bags, or at least cover up with blankets.) Thirty seconds later, it is sprinkling rain. (Grown-ups stashing away any thing they may have forgotten and heading for cover in the tent.) Thirty seconds later, it’s either hailing or pouring rain. (We had both.) Needless to say, it was a very wet and cold weekend. The highs were in the 60s and the lows at night down to 40. Good thing we packed long pajamas and lots of blankets. When we were all snuggled up, it wasn’t *that* bad. But if you even tried to poke your nose out of the covers…. *bbbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr* There were some good moments, too! The boys took quite a few little hikes around the campground. Wade and I took them on a little more extended one, as well. The one hike we all took (including the friends we went camping with) was up to a little pond called “Dude’s Fishing Hole.” Cool hike, easy enough for the kids. But we got up there to fish, and about 15 minutes later, the skies looked like this….

Yep…you guessed it…two minute drill. UGH! So we got around the lake to the beginning of the trail back to the car (which was between a quarter and a half mile long) and we had to take cover under some trees. Hail. It was bad. After a few minutes we decided to send Wade and Robin back to the car to get us some panchos and we would just hike back to the car in the rain. Of course, by the time he got back, we got in the ponchos and made it to the car…the rain stopped. That’s the recurring theme of our camping trip. *sigh* Here is one of our puddles around the picnic table…I liked the raindrop ripples…

And just so you know it wasn’t all that bad… All three of my kids discovered the joy of climbing trees this weekend. Even my little Benji made it up one all by his lonesome. Here is a pic of him looking so pleased with himself…(that’s Avery’s hand up behind him.) The branch that Benji was sitting on was a good 4 1/2 feet off the ground and it was the lowest branch. Little monkeys…