Cameron's 5th birthday at Disney

We celebrated Cameron's 5th birthday a few weeks early with a weekend camping trip at Disney's Fort Wilderness. This was our first time using our new camper (a "toy hauler") which we bought back in July. It has a full kitchen, bath, bunk beds and another small bed in the front. The back door folds down so that we can haul motorcycles, golf carts or other small things. We really love having the extra space (and I love having the bathroom, lol!)

We invited two families to spend the day with us on Saturday to celebrate Cameron's birthday and the kids enjoyed swimming, pizza, cake and playing games. It was a great camping trip!

The new camper

Looking in from the back (there's a screen you can pull down when the back is open if the weather is nice.) Those seats fold down to make one of the beds.

Hello!

Bike riding is always a must while camping!

Cameron & Olivia coming down the slides at the pool

Cameron & Drayke 

Pizza time!

Golf cart ride to the camper

Corbyn & Olivia 

Cameron asked for a Mickey Mouse school bus cake so here's my best attempt, lol! I made the cake & Charles did the frosting design. 

The other little boy is someone Cameron met at the campground the day before & he invited him to the party.

The boys making a fort in the woods

Olivia and Timmy playing with the iPads

Presents!

Piñata fun!

Silly Corbyn

What a fun day!

Cameron loves to ride on the Disney buses 

Silly hats!

Playground time

First Day of School

On August 26 both Olivia and Cameron had their first day of preschool- Olivia in the young 3 year old class and Cameron in Pre-K. This was Olivia's first year of school and she is starting in the same class Cameron did going Monday, Wednesday, and every other Friday. Cameron started his 3rd year at St. Paul's in the Pre-K class but this was his first year going 5 days. Both of them did really well with no tears, yeah! Olivia walked right in to her class & was excited to go to school like Cameron.

We had to wait in line to take a picture by this sign & a little girl who took her picture before us did a cute pose so I think Olivia wanted to copy her- hence Olivia's cute pose in this photo :)

Olivia walking into her class

Bye mom!

Cameron getting his name tag.

Sitting in circle

Cameron is in the Panda Bear class with Ms. Mary Jane and Olivia is in the Busy Bee class with Ms. Kara.

Catalina & Mary

At the end of July for 4 weeks we hosted two exchange students, Mary from Russia and Catalina from Spain. This was our fourth year hosting students & we had a great time with the girls. They both ride & show horses so we planned a lot of horse farm tours to show them the horse industry in Marion County. They would spend the morning in class & the afternoon on a field trip. We would drop them off in the morning & pick them up in the evening. The weekends were spent on horse farms & other fun activities. The kids loved having them here & would look forward to them coming home from school every day.  It's hard to say goodbye knowing we may not see them again but we try to keep in touch by email.

Our welcome sign to greet the girls when they first arrived

Catalina with one of the horses at Live Oak Stud a big horse farm we toured

Mary with the horses

Mary celebrated her 16th birthday while she was here so we gave her a small birthday party complete with presents and apple pie

Wearing her new shirt

With her apple pie. Our neighbors stopped by & ended up joining us for pie

Mary cooking us Russian crepes

Visiting an Arabian farm, the owners are friends of Charles'

At the farm of Charles' patients. They have reining horses

Reining demonstration 

At the bike trails

On our little boat, pulling a kayak (since we all couldn't fit in the boat)

Catalina & Cameron 

Swimming in the rainbow river

Catalina riding the horse of a good friend of ours, Ryan Martin

Mary riding

Olivia on Ryan's pony

Catalina & Olivia (Olivia loved Catalina!) such a sweet photo

Touring Gypsy Vanner farm

At the graduation for the girls (Catalina is second from left)

Olivia wearing the graduation cap

Mary leading the skit for the Russian group at graduation

Mary (in the middle) with her graduation certificate

At the end of the graduation (Charles & Cameron were out of town at the race track.)