Before adventures of the weekend I’d like to share some news. Heath’s department was all let go on Thursday. This seems like bad news at first but it comes with a lot of opportunities. Heath’s primary “job” now is finding a job. Maybe you all can help? She is very talented. Please share any opportunities with us. In the mean while she has a few more pay checks to collect and lots to do.
This morning started off with some pretty intense excise, lots of push ups, sit ups, burpees and squats. Then we headed to the shop and got working on a kids kitchen for the kids.
The girls will be going to daycare less and Heath has a month of activities already scheduled for them to do. Plus she has already taken on a bigger roll in the kitchen and everyone is chipping in to help.
Last night we had a Mexican fest and we made our own tortillas and re-fried beans. Both Pumpkin and Peanut helped us out and had a lot of fun.
Pumpkin worked on dessert and did a lot of mixing and pouring.
We made a crispy oatmeal crust and filled it with vanilla pudding and strawberries. It was a big hit.
Before dinner we went to the Nature Center in Swope park to see the animals and our neighbor.
She made our visit extra special.
We saw some old friends there too.
The kids loved watching all the animals.
Peanut worked hard to find all the answers on a quiz.
and I taught the kids about the unicorns, in the woods nearby.
This wore Bean out so she took a nap and the rest of us played charades.
My weekend was mostly spent in a little campground north of St. Joe.
Jon and I headed to Monkey Mountain, Friday as soon as we could pack. (There are 2 Monkey Mountains in our area and this is not the one I went to as a scout, FYI)
It was dark when we got there but we were glad to find less snow then KC but we had a tough time finding a good campsite. Our 4th spot made us really glad we had driven around the entire place checking. It was perfect. A desserted little parking lot off a gravel road…
…that diped down into a flat open area.
Once we got in we dug out a spot for the fire and got one going. 
It was late in the night and we had several empty beer cans before we bothered to set up a tent.
We slept in late getting over 9 hours of sleep. It was a little cold but not bad. We had turkeyburger, potatoes and eggs in tortillas for breakfast then loaded up some day packs and started exploring.
Our first destination was the Missouri river.
We didn’t follow a trail most of the time and fought our way through a tough field.
It was way worth it when we made our out on this wing-dam
and had a few beers and snacks
After this river we headed to the Nodaway river. There was not really hiking trails but we found some old tractor roads and did a little bushwhacking. It was kind of slow going in the snow and we got pretty warm.
We found the river but were up on a bluff and picked out a spot for lunch.
Then we made our way down
and found a nice sunny hill for lunch and more beers.
We had hard boiled eggs, raisins, goldfish crackers and tortillas filled with peanut butter. We were pretty sweaty and a breeze came and cooled us off but the view was really nice.
We headed back to our campsite and found a much more efficient route on the way back. Once there we built up the fire and started drying out.
We got a 2nd fire in the camp stove and used it’s USB port to keep my cell phone charged.
We TuneIn ed to a bunch of public radio programs and spent the next 6 hrs listening to the news, This American Life, Radio Lab and more.
We started out drinking hot tea made from snow and moved back to beer. Well after dark we got hungry and cooked up almost everything we had left.
We ended up mixing it all in a big pot and calling it soup. We stuffed our bellies and went to bed. I slept in a double sleeping bag Saturday night and if anything was too hot but didn’t mind and we both slept about 9.5 hrs.
In the morning we made an identical breakfast as the day before.
Then tossed all our gear in the truck and headed home.
The camp-out was a success, we had some adventure, some beers and some relaxation.
I did miss out on some adventures at home including a really tight exciting soccer game.
Peanut’s team ended up wining 10-9
It was supposed to be the last game of the year but they made it to playoffs so we play again next Saturday.