Stone's Stories: Beaver's Bend 2011

Traveling Day - Thursday, March 24th

Ben, Janet, Bryan, and I loaded up the van before picking the kids up from Mother's Day Out. I have to admit I was a little skeptical if ALL our stuff would fit. We had 4 adults and 2 kiddo's worth of luggage, 1 Pack-N-Play, a wagon, a child carrier backpack, sports equipment, and 2 bikes! As I shared my skepticism Ben said, "Don't worry, I'm a master packer!"

Here's the "Master Packer" and Bryan working their magic

Everything fit like a glove, why did I ever doubt the Master Packer!!

As our van pulled into the Christ United Methodist Church parking lot we received a few funny looks. Here we are on a Thursday afternoon rolling in with suitcases on top of a big van and 2 bikes attached to the back! Never the less, Janet and I hoped out to pick up Marin and Matthew from their classrooms. As the kids were walking down the hall and outside they were saying, "Yay Beavers Bend!".

Here's Marin and Matthew all loaded up and enjoying a drink before napping during the 3/3.5 hour drive

After making a pit stop half way through our trip we arrived in Beaver's Bend a little after 6:00 and headed straight to the Brewer's, Brewer's, Caffey's, Arthur's, Burnett's, and Griner's camping area for a group fajita dinner. The food was really yummy but the company was even better! It was neat watching all the kids chase each other around in the woods, they had so much fun. What a great start to an awesome weekend!!

Once we were finished with dinner and hanging out we headed to our cabin to unload the van and to put Marin and Matthew to bed. Janet and I then headed into town to get groceries at the Super Walmart while Ben and Bryan started our first camp fire of the weekend. I have to say after going to Beaver's Bend for many years we now have it down to an art form. Janet and I have a packing list we share every year to make sure we don't over pack. Since we stay in the same cabin every year we know what items are already there (i.e., plates, cups, bowls, coffee maker, cutlery, pots, pans, sheets, towels). We also know the layout of the Walmart so we don't waste time wandering around trying to find things. I'm impressed with our efficiency as we have learned what works and what doesn't work over the years!

Friday, March 25th

Friday morning Bryan and Ben offered to make Breakfast for anyone who wanted to join us. Ben made the bacon and Bryan made his specialty, Blueberry (and plain) Pancakes. We enjoyed eating with David, Tracey, and Zachary Griner and visiting with Kristin Brewer. Again, the food was very yummy!!

Since the boys made the grub us women offered to clean it up....

After breakfast we went outside to hang out infront of our cabin. Jeremy, Stephenie, and Sierra; Kelly, and Riley; and Mark, and Amanda came to hang out with us as well! We stay in Cabin 48 or "The Specialty Cabin" as our group has named it and it is secluded from the other cabins. Well, secluded meaning there isn't a cabin right next to it. There is a dirt road that leads to our cabin and the only people who drive on it are the ones going to our cabin. So it's really nice for the kids to play on since we know no one will be passing through!

We enjoyed the cooler weather while hanging out, playing various sports, and pulling the kids in the wagon!

Jeremy, Sierra, Ben, David, and Marin

Bryan, Ben, Marin, and David pulling Zachary and Matthew

The wagon is a HUGE hit every year, I'm really glad Matthew's Great Grandparents, Mawmaw and Pawpaw and "The Greats" (Aunt Piper and Uncle David) got it for him for his first birthday!

David pulling Zachary and Matthew with Sierra in the background

Marin, Matthew, and Sierra

Amanda trying desperately to make Riley smile....ha ha!!

Matthew

Jeremy pulling Zachary and Sierra

Matthew took a brief time out from playing so we could take this family photo!

And when I say brief I mean BRIEF ;)

Matthew, Sierra pulling Zachary, Bryan, Tracey, and I

Sierra pulling Zachary while Matthew pushed from behind

Of course I had to capture as much as I could on my video camera!!

David Griner documented this moment on his camera :)

Jeremy and Zachary

Zachary and Matthew

Matthew, Jeremy, David, Ben, and Me in the background pulling a few kids in the wagon - I can't tell which ones though

Amanda, Me, Kelly, Riley, and Tracey

Bryan and Matthew

Me pulling Marin, Matthew, and Sierra

Amanda, Kelly, Riley, Janet, Stephenie, and Bryan are in the background

Amanda, Riley, Kelly, Janet and a nice action shot of Stephenie!!

A few photo's of the adorable kids!!

Matthew Stone

Marin Wheeler

Riley Baker

Zachary Griner

and

Sierra Brewer

After everyone was finished playing at our cabin we all went our separate ways for lunch. The Wheelers and us decided to pack up a picnic lunch to take to the park to eat. Once we were finished eating we played on the slide for a little bit until it was Marin and Matthew's naptime.

Something we've enjoyed each year (weather permitting) is hiking through the trails around the state park. We've walked through several of the trails however this year we tried a new one. Every Sunday we conclude our trip by hiking up a trail to a spot that overlooks the river for a devotional. This trail makes a circle and we have always only gone as far as the river overlook. So after the kids woke up from their naps we decided to start at the other end of the trail and end where we have our traditional devo.

Matthew loves to be lifted up into a jump while holding our hands. The other day I observed him holding his Mickey Mouse stuffed animal saying, "One, Two, Three, Jump" and then he lifted Mickey into the air like we do with him......monkey see, monkey do!!

Bryan proudly carrying Matthew on his back

The Wheeler's

Okay, so, this picture does NOT do the trail justice! Janet took this picture to document how steep the terrain was; however, it doesn't look that bad here. We hiked up an incline for a good part of the trail. At one point we had to walk in a line because it dropped off on one side and went straight up on the other. By the time we reached the highest point of the trail I was a little winded ;)

At the top, isn't it beautiful?!?!

Bryan and Matthew admiring the view

This is the river we typically go canoeing down at some point during the weekend; however, we didn't do it this year

Ben, Janet, and Marin at our traditional devotional site

Bryan and Matthew walking down the trail to our car

Janet and I hung back to take this picture. We said we're pretty lucky to have husbands who are such great dads!!

After our afternoon hike we met the rest of the group at the park and then headed into town to eat dinner at Arby's. I don't think Arby's knew what to think about us, we had 16 adults and 7 kids and took up about 3/4 of their restaurant!! They were appreciative of our patronage but were probably not sad to see us go!!

Once we got back to the cabin Bryan, Ben, Janet, and I had a deal....the girls would bathe the kids while the boys started our camp fire, then the boys would put the kids to bed while the girls tended to the fire.

Here's our little monkey's playing around before bedtime.....

By the time we finished taking pictures and switching duties, the fire left very little to be desired. Neither Janet or I had ever built a fire so we started "winging" it. We found sturdy logs and started to make a teepee. Then we found smaller branches to put underneath the teepee to get the fire started back up again. By the time the boys came back from putting the kids to bed this is what our fire looked like. Janet and I were so impressed I figured I needed a picture to document the occasion ;)

Saturday, March 26th

As tradition holds, most of the boys play golf Saturday morning while at Beaver's Bend. This year all the boys played except for Jason and Ben, they went running instead. At the time Jason was training for a half marathon and Ben wanted to run with him. During and after running Ben realized he missed running and decided to train for the marathon with Jason. I'm so impressed with people who run long distances. I would LOVE to do that some day!!

While the boys were entertaining themselves with their sports, most of the girls gathered the kids together to play.

We played with PlayDough

We played cards and with other toys

Then it came time to try to gather the kids for our yearly group photo. At this point all the kids were playing outside and since we were all in the same place (not scattered throughout the cabin) we thought it'd be good to take a break for a picture.

Most of the kids cooperated

Sutton, Zachary, Clara, Sierra, and Marin

But as you can see Matthew did NOT want to stop playing

Sierra and Marin

Sweet Friends!

After the first picture attempt we decided we'd let the kids play more and try again later. All the kids had a lot of fun riding their bikes/scooters, being pulled in the wagon, running around, and just being kids! It's really neat watching all of them becoming friends themselves, I guess they really don't have a choice though ;) This whole group has meant so much to Bryan and I through the years and it's really cool to watch our group dynamic change year to year as more kids are added and as the current ones grow up!

Here we are attempting a group photo, again!! Sometimes I wonder if the dads think the kids just wander over in a group and we shoot the pictures so I decided to post the process :)

Step One

Stephenie with Sierra and Marin

Step Two

Tracey added Zachary

Step Three

Laura brings Clara and Matthew over in the wagon

Step Four

Kristin adds Sutton to the Wagon

Step Five

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!

All the moms run over and start shooting pictures with their cameras (look at our reflection, ha ha) as we sing, chant, make crazy faces, whatever it takes to get them to smile and STAY STILL!!

Clara, Sutton, Matthew, Zachary, Sierra, and Marin

I'm imagining Sierra tell Zachary, "They make us do this every year, next year we're revolting, okay?!?!"

Right after we took the last photo Matthew got hit in the head with something, he wasn't hurt, he was just stunned so he started crying. Plus it was lunch time and nap time so it didn't take much to upset him! Zachary became really concerned for Matthew and asked his mom (Tracey) if he could pray for Matthew. Tracey picked Zachary up and took him over to Matthew, Zachary put his hand on Matthew's shoulder, and Tracey began to pray for Matthew. SO sweet, brought tears to my eyes!

This is one of Elena's friends who came with her on the trip. She enjoyed pulling all the kiddo's around in the wagon. At one point I told her she's good at entertaining the kids and she told me, "I get that all the time"!! I had to struggle not to laugh, especially since I saw Janet smirking out of the corner of my eye ;) She was really cute!! She kept telling me she liked Matthew because he just sat in the wagon and let her pull it everywhere.

After play time it was time for lunch and naps!! Janet, Marin, Matthew, and I enjoyed eating with Tracey and Zachary at our cabin while the rest of the group went back to their own cabins. This is the Griner's first Beaver's Bend experience and it was really good to have them there! Over the past year I have had several opportunities to get to know Tracey better and I know my life is better for having her in it!

Once the kids woke up it was time to go ride the train, one of the highlights of the trip!! The park has a train that goes through the woods along with horseback riding. This was right before Matthew's "choo choo train" obsession so it'll be neat to see his reaction to the train next year!

Clara, Matthew, Marin, and Sutton waiting for the train

Front Side

Back Side :)

Clara, Matthew, Marin, Zachary, Sutton, and Sierra

It's Here!!!

We had the whole train to ourselves!

Me, Bryan, and Matthew (showing his goldfish, gotta love boys!)

Janet, Marin, and Ben

Ben and Marin

There was a park across the street from the train depot so we decided to go play a little bit before our annual cookout....

Laura, Clara, Ben, and Marin swinging on the swings

Everyone playing chase through the playground

The girls watching the boys being chased by the kids!

After playing in the park everyone came over to our cabin for the cookout. This is a fun tradition that gets the whole group together since we are spread out doing our own things throughout the weekend. The kids have fun playing with each other and I enjoy talking with all the ladies about various things.

Bryan, Matthew, and I by the river outside our cabin

Matthew playing

The men around the grill

Ben, Mark, David, Jeremy

An action pose...I think I have a picture of Ben like this every year!

Angie and Rebecca

This was their first year at Beavers Bend too!

And their husbands lovin' on each other :)

The Wheeler's

The Griner's

The Brewer's

I absolutely LOVE this picture so you get to see 2 family photo's of them!!

The Arthur's

The Stiger's

The Caffey's

That night after all the kids were put to bed the group decided to have a girls/boys campfire. All the girls gathered at our cabin for our fire while the boys gathered at the other group's campsite where we had our fajita dinner the first night. I had SO much fun talking with all the girls. You just never know what's going to come out of some of their mouths...Laura...JUST kidding!

Laura and Tracey

Stephenie

Oh, how sweet

Me, Stephenie, and Kristin

Me and Stephenie

Janet, Amanda, and Kelly

It was really cold that night and our fire's smoke was blowing everywhere.

Here's Tracey taking cover, ha ha!!

Okay...so...it's like this...we ran out of dry wood for the fire so Laura was trying to break a big log in half. She first tried slicing it in half with the ax we had, which didn't work plus it was a major bad idea as far as safety is concerned. So, Stephenie and Laura had the good idea of putting the log in between these 2 trees to try and break it in half.....

Except it didn't break...

Laura stood on it instead and tried to shimmy it down until it wedged between the trees and broke because of the pressure.

And it still didn't break :)

Needless to say we ended our fire but had a lot of laughs anyway!!

Last Day - Sunday, March 27th

Like I've said before, our group ends our time together by having a devotional at an overlook on a hiking trail. However, Sunday morning we woke up to drizzle and 30 something degree weather. No one wanting to hike and sit outside for an hour or so in that kind of weather. So we improvised by having the devotional in our cabin since we have the large meeting area.

Ben just happened to have a song hymnal in the van. It was fun looking through it and singing old songs we liked. We had ourselves a good 'ole fashion sing along, which was good entertainment while Janet and I packed up our stuff!

Here's Ben song leading to an audience of 1 :)

After everyone arrived we settled into our spots. We had a line of kiddo's on the floor....

Bryan, Matthew, and I

Jeremy starting our devotional off with a few words

After Jeremy spoke we sang a few songs. Ben recorded us singing 728b which sounded awesome in the big room, you can listen to it by clicking here!!

A sweet picture of Janet and Marin!

Another tradition (among all the many others) is to take group pictures after our devotional before heading home!

Here's the Wheeler's and us, except Matthew was being a little camera shy

Janet and I

The Baker's Small Group

Baker's, Caffey's, and Arthur's

It was so nice to have the Caffey's and Arthur's with us this year!! I hope we didn't scare them away and they come back next year!!

Stephenie, Sierra, Kelly, and Riley

Our group this year, look at that size! SO awesome!!

After everyone left Janet and I finished packing and cleaning our cabin while the boys took the kids to check out for the weekend and reserve our spot for next year. Once the boys and kiddo's came back Marin and Matthew started playing basketball with a beach ball and aerobie....