The internet is a funny thing. I know there are a million and one articles out their all over face book about parents and kids being too distracted… about the negative side effects of being on facebook and blogging… and well, this is not one of them. Nor is this going to be an article in defense of face book or blogging. Truthfully, like just about EVERY SINGLE OTHER MAJOR ISSUE plaguing Momma’s these days, I kinda think moderation is the key… and I also really don’t enjoy debating… so I just kinda stay out of it.

It’s hard enough not living in the home town of your favorite sports team. Even harder than that, is living in the town of the ARCH RIVAL of your favorite sports team. One way that I think we as a family have connected and stayed connected with our Steelers roots, is by making the trek to training camp as often as possible. We missed the last two years, but we went often enough over the past 10 years that the big 3 all remember going and talk about going and consider it a tradition.

My daughter turned 7 last week. She wanted a gymnastics party with her friends. I had no idea how to throw a gymnastics party. Turns out if you invite 10 gymnasts over to your house, you don’t have to do anything to turn it into a gymnastics party. They do it themselves. We picked the girls up from practice and brought them to our house for the party. Minutes after walking in the door, they were on the bar downstairs, then the trampoline, then doing their routine in the back yard.

1o years ago Scott and I went before our church and made a commitment before God to raise our son as a disciple of our Lord Jesus Chris. Father’s day weekend, 2004, we rejoiced with our congregation as he was baptized. This was not a sign of our sons salvation. It was the sign of God’s promise to save and cleans sinners who call upon Him. Our son was not saved, but we rejoiced in the seal representing God’s power to save.

The last true day of our vacation (the day before we headed home) was in my opinion the most relaxing day of the week. We slept in, ate breakfast, (the kids did the dishes), and then we headed out for a morning hike along the beach.   The tide was out and we discovered many living creatures in tide pools on the rocky beach . We made our way to the other side of the island and even caught a glimpse of the Boston skyline.

It shouldn’t shock me, but yet it does. How completely DIFFERENT each of my children are. Their personalities are so unique, it truly amazes me. Take my youngest. Oh my goodness… he is such a goof ball, and a FLIRT, but I’ll save that for another post… Here the kids are in Boston. “Kids, get together so mom can get a picture of the four of you by the fountains.”

After our rain delay/rain out, we finally made it to Peddocks Island… one day late. After hiking the LONG hike uphill to our site, I am so glad we didn’t attempt it during the torrential rainstorm. It was a big enough hassle getting our stuff from the van to the ferry, off the ferry, on to the other ferry, off that ferry, and then up the long hike up hill to our site… but the weather was gorgeous.

The plan for today was to wake up and prepare to catch a ferry to Boston Harbor Island to begin the camping portion of our vacation. However, we woke to this. And after checking the weather saw that the day was going to be off and on rain showers for the remainder. This seemed like less than an ideal setting to haul all our camping gear onto a ferry, off a ferry, onto another ferry, to our campsite AND THEN set up a tent… a tent with a screen roof none the less.

We chose Boston for a family vacation destination this summer because of our study this past year on the American Revolution. However, I had no illusions of dragging four kids through the entire 2 and 1/2 mile freedom trail on a hot and humid summer day. We are actually going to spend the bulk of our week camping on an island in Boston Harbor, but I did want to show the kids a few highlights of history, especially my oldest as he is the history buff of the crew.

It was super fun to take the kids to see the “Statue of the Liberty” on the first day of our vacation. It was a cloudy and overcast day so the picture of the Manhattan skyline don’t pop with color, but it was still really neat to see the skyline from this vantage point. At first we couldn’t figure out why our youngest would lay down on the ground when we were at the base of the pedestal.