School Camping Trip

Ryan took the kids downtown again this year to watch the soapbox races.  They had planned to watch from his office building, which has a perfect view, but the police department ended up closing the building to spectators - Rats!  Anyway, here is Elise with her favorite car.
   

  
That same day, we headed up to Silverwood Lake to attend Connor's class campout.  Unfortunately, not very many families were able to attend, but it was still pretty fun.  We grilled hot dogs and chatted with the other parents while the kids ran around.  
  

  
After it got dark, we did marshmallows and went stargazing.  
  

  
Connor's teacher's husband (who is a science teacher himself) had the coolest toys ever.  One was a special laser pointer that could be seen in the air, well enough to point out individual stars in the sky.  The other was a "celestial scout".  It's shaped kind of like a video camera, with a computer on the side where you can look up that night's "highlights", or search for a specific star, planet, constellation, etc.  Then, you look through the viewfinder and follow the arrows until you're looking at whatever you were searching for.  Or, you can point it at a star, push a button, and it will tell you what it is.  I sooo want one.  On the way to finding a good spot for looking at all this stuff, somebody saw a toad in the grass, so Ms. Debbie picked it up and gave an impromptu lesson on toads.  I love Connor's marshmallow face. 
   

    
 Later on, everybody shared campfire stories, and Connor very proudly did his rendition of "Bloody Fingers".  Also, one of the dads played this crazy Native American flute, that lets you do two notes at once. 
   

  
Connor fell asleep in Ryan's lap, so after awhile we excused ourselves to make the 90-minute drive home.  Yeah, we're that lame.  We had church stuff to do in the morning, and nobody would have appreciated Evan's version of nighttime sleep, so it was definitely the way to do it.