'Effort'

Today Landon won the Core Value of the Month Award at school and got his award during Town Hall. The Core Value this month was Effort. This is what the award read on the back of it:

"Landon has been doing a great job this month! He is a good student and always tries his best. He always completes his work and I've noticed a big improvement in his handwriting and the quality of his work. He is very conscientious and makes a great effort to do his work correctly. Congratulations Landon!"

I was a proud mommy today. We were told ahead of time not to clue him in that he was getting an award...so we showed up with video and camera in hand and loved his little grin when he went on stage.

After the Friday assembly known as Town Hall my husband and I headed home to pack for camping. We literally shopped and packed all day until the kids got out of school at 3. Once we picked them up we headed to Pinecrest Lake in the Stanislaus National Forest. We opted out of electronics like Nintendo DS or iPod Touch on this trip and stuck with good old-fashioned car games and Mad Libs. I think I laugh at the Mad Libs as much or more than the kids.

Once we got to Pinecrest, we drove around to try to get the best site. Once we found one we liked, Gary unloaded the van and I took the kids to the restroom only to find a better site on the walk back from the restrooms. Poor guy loaded the stuff BACK into the van and we headed to the new site. Luckily he agreed it was alot better. Ironically it was site 'A51'....so the boys called it Area 51 :) It took such a long time to set up that we had to cook a late dinner and opted for roasting chicken sausages over the fire, since that was a quick and easy meal. I was worried about the nighttime temperature of 40 degrees....so I bundled up the boys like eskimos and they went right to sleep. I, on the other hand, discovered my bad back cannot deal with air mattresses any longer and staggered and shuffled around like a granny all the next day.