Camping and Elliott at 10 Months

Jim has been picking our raspberries like crazy and I have made jam and we have frozen some.  Our weather has been really pleasant, we still haven't needed to put our air conditioner in.

Last Friday after work Jim took Emmett and Ezra up to camp with a bunch of people from our Sunday school class.  Elliott and I went up on Saturday for the day, we weren't quite ready to have him camp with us.  The kids painted rocks, prepped their campfire cones for later in the evening, played volleyball, hiked, went geocaching and played with sticks.  I think there were around 40 kids...it was a little overwhelming.

painting rocks

Hiking a trail up the ridge for a great view

Ezra painted his face with something...we think it was the leftover paint from the rock painting project

Emmett's campfire cone

 Also, Elliott hit the 10 month mark on July 4th.  He is growing quickly and learning all sorts of new tricks.  He crawls quickly and pulls up to a stand.  He likes to chase balls around the house and the cat too.  He also likes to kick balls...he'll push them with his hands out to his feet and then kick.  He has his front lower left tooth and the right one is just breaking through.

On Monday daycare called me in the morning to say they thought he might have hand foot and mouth disease.  He didn't have a fever, but had a few blister type spots on his hand and foot.  He had gotten a little rashy in the tall grass while camping so I was a little doubtful.  I went and got him at lunch and Jim was able to come home and watch him for the afternoon.  I was off the next day and took him to the doctor, he was still acting fine but I wanted to know for sure.  The doctor was a little skeptical with the story, but when he saw the blisters and heard that Elliott was a somewhat congested he decided it probably was a mild case of the virus.  He also had an ear infection in his left ear which we decided to hold off on treating to see if he could clear it on his own, especially since it is probably viral at this point.  When they weighed him at the doctor's office he was 19lbs, which is bigger than either of his brothers were at 1 year.