Celebrations & Camping!

Hello again everyone! The last few weeks have been busy as usual, but also full of celebrations and beautiful spring weather. On March 30, Cliff and I celebrated 8 years of marriage. Since our actual anniversary landed on a busy weekday, we waited to go out and celebrate until that weekend. We left the kids with the neighbors and had a nice dinner out at Red Robin. A few days after that, we enjoyed a Sunday afternoon picnic at an area park. The kids had a blast running around the playground and walking over to see the lake.

Sliding together at Holmes Lake Park.

Last Thursday, we celebrated Cliff's birthday with a family dinner out to Sam & Louie's, a local chain that specializes in pizza. Cliff and I enjoyed a specialty pizza, while the kids were thrilled with their jumbo slices of pepperoni pizza. Dining out is a rare treat for us these days, but thanks to some gift money from our parents and some internet coupons, we were able to enjoy 2 dinners out in a short span of time.

Family of 4 dining out!

The next day, we packed up the van for our first camping event of the year. We met up with our friends, the Tacketts, at Mahoney State Park, which is just 30 minutes east of Lincoln. We enjoyed a beautiful weekend of camping and catching up. Though it was still pretty chilly at night, it was gorgeous during the day, and it was nice to be outside. Our kids and their kids had a great time playing together and visiting the campground's playgrounds. Laura and Nathan even conquered some fear by going down the huge curly slide several times. Before leaving yesterday, we all climbed the observation tower to get a nice view of the Platte River. Our picture from up top is the new photo at the top of the blog. Overall, we enjoyed cooking out, making s'mores and just relaxing.

Campfire + camp chairs = relaxation......

Conquering the big slide!

Now, it is time for Cliff's "final push" of the semester. It will be a very busy 3 weeks or so for him before he can shift to "summer mode." Laura has school until June 3, so we won't all be in our summer state for a little while yet, but we're getting there!

Gina