Camping

     After Weston's week of uninterrupted study time and a week of finals, he had about a week and a half of vacation time so what do we do? CAMPING!!!! A couple from church had recommended a few places that we could go to and we decided New River Gorge National River. It was a beautiful and magical place, at least to me. On the website it said that it was a primitive campsite so there was no running water but it was free. We were a little nervous that it would all be taken by the time we got there. Luckily we left during the week so we were actually just one of two campers. The campground was completely covered in sand and the kids enjoyed that a lot! The best part was how close we were to the river. If you don't already know this about Madeline, then I should let you know, she LOVES water. She wanted to go to it so badly. After setting up the tent, we went and Mads just had a blast. We knew the river would be close so we had packed our swimsuits but we never got in. The kids didn't have any life vests but I thought "we'll stay close to the kids, it'll be okay. It'll be fun!" but then I got too nervous. We settled for dipping our feet in the river instead. We, of course, had fun with our making of the campfire because it took FOREVER, but we still ended up with a delicious meal that was at least partially cooked. In the morning we went on our hike that was along Glade Creek. Our inclination of course is to go down to it and throw rocks at it, so we did. We kept adventuring through our trail and stopped at a small waterfall with a pool. Before we got there we found ourselves some awesome walking sticks, which came in very handy in our excursion through the rocky pool. We had a couple of fun slippery rocks that humbled our hiking egos, a couple of times. We took the hit, learned, then used the sticks to help.

Preschool

     This is clearly late ,but Oliver started preschool and it must be documented. His class consists of three other kids that he already knew, and I think that definitely helped with the adjustment of preschool.  He goes four times a week, Monday through Thursday from 9 am ttil 12:30pm. At first I was thinking this would be a lot for him all at once but he LOVED it.

     His first day was adorable. He was excited although a little dazed by how early, according to our standards of course, he needed to get up. And I've been learning a lot of who he is, things that I may have missed otherwise. For example, he's a perfectionist in little boy standards. This is probably common among other kids his age I don't know, but he really likes to have things a certain way.

This was from his first day and I was surprised by how clear and deliberate his placements were with his pasta. Who knew? I didn't. He also loves patterns.
     They also practice writing their names, which Oliver already knew how, but only with all caps. Every morning they have to write it properly and it has improved greatly. Before then I would try to help him do it lower case and he just didn't want to do it. I think he just needed someone that wasn't me.

He doesn't always talk about it but when I ask him if he wants to go to school in the morning it almost always with a very enthusiastic yes. I am so grateful for the mom in our ward who wanted to do this and for turning her home into a little preschool. She has been great teacher for him and is very patient with all of them. Couldn't have asked for a better first time experience of sending a child to school.