Camping, Visits, and Birthdays

What happens when you get behind blogging? You end up with a bunch of random happenings lumped into one post. So bear with me here...

The first weekend in October was the fulfillment of something I have been wanting to do for a loooong time now...and we had the best weather! The Hartmans finally went camping! Whoever it was that got us our tent that we registered for for our wedding, thank you because we have now finally put it to use! Eight of us (four couples) packed up and went to Petit Jean State Park in Arkansas. It was about 3 hours and 15 minutes away but absolutely worth the drive.

Jon, one of the guys that went with us, decided we had the nicest camping setup he had ever seen with all of the equipment and food. To me, it was just camping...guess I don't know how to "rough it".
Two nights...a really packed car (this was one of two).

It just so happened to be Sarah's birthday that day, so Stacy made her a super cute birthday cake. What better way to celebrate a birthday than by a campfire?
Sarah and her "dirt cake"...very fitting for a camping weekend.
Our tent for the weekend...we had to set it up at 11:30 on Friday night!
Delicious pancakes for breakfast on Saturday morning. Nothing like an iron skillet on open flame...that's good cookin'.
Randy and the great outdoors!
Our little hiking trip trailed along a beautiful river, took us to a giant waterfall, and super cool cave!
Beautiful day!

This picture definitely doesn't do the waterfall any justice, but it was really big. Problem was, I couldn't get close enough to the edge for a good picture, and we didn't have time to go down to the bottom of it. :(

Girls picture. Stacy, me, Emily, and Sarah.
This would be Jon inside the cave. No he is not naked, but it did make for a pretty funny photo op.
Beautiful cave. Again, not too great of pictures.
This is mainly what our weekend consisted of. Sitting/standing around the campfire and talking about life.
Awesome hammock thanks to Adam who was prepared with all things camping.
Meat night. Chicken, hot dogs, hamburgers. Delicious.
Sarah's birthday dessert #2: cupcakes!
And no camping trip is complete without a good batch of smores....mmmm!
We ended our trip on Sunday morning after a wonderfully amazing breakfast at Cracker Barrel.

2nd part of blog...great visits from great friends! The first of which came from my Australian mate, Sarah Kate. She left a couple of years ago to do some work with a church in Perth, and two years later, she is married to a wonderful Australian surfer dude...sounds too perfect, right? Well, she deserves it all! We had a great time catching up and eating some yummy yogurt. I love hearing about her life halfway across the world, and although I miss her dearly, I couldn't be happier for her. Maybe the next time we meet up should be in her neck of the woods?!
(This is an old pic, because we failed to take one in the 2 hours we had to catch up.)

Second visitor was Kelsa, a friend twenty years in the making. We have been childhood friends, teenage moody friends, roommates, and now are almost like sisters. She came for the weekend just to catch up for one of the last times for a while because she is planning to move to the west coast. We did nothing but walk, eat, talk, and eat...oh yeah, we did manage to go see a movie. We had an amazing time just talking...it's so funny how our conversations have changed over the years from school to boys to actually meaningful stuff. From the pic below (which is also old) you can see that we share the same bizarre sense of humor.

And here you have a picture of our amazing breakfast pizza we made. I just had to include a picture because it was that. good.

Last but not least, Randy's birthday was this past weekend, and he is now a quarter of a century old! Such a cougar I am. We spent a pretty simple night eating at the local mexican restaurant, El Toro Loco, with our friends Josh and Amanda. They sang to him while putting a sombrero on him and stuffing whipped cream on his face which was a pretty funny sight. At home, we ate some ice cream cake and then just enjoyed a quiet night in.

I'm not going to go on and on about how much I love this guy, but I will say that I am one lucky girl. As we like to say in the Hartman household, we are "two peas in a God pod". I'm happy to have him as my faithful and trusty pea to travel through this crazy journey that is our life.

Happy 25th Birthday, Rando!

Henry, 5 months

My 5 month, 50 pound baby is growing up so fast! I am realizing that if I do not keep taking pictures of him, I won't notice how fast he is growing. What happened to him fitting in my lap? When did his tail get so strong that he could break my candle sitting out on our coffee table with one quick swing?

He is probably around half his weight right now, and although he LOOKS big, he still acts very much like the baby. He is getting much better on walks now thanks to his harness, he loves to dig holes (like he's digging to China) in our backyard, and he is getting better on his commands.

Here are some more recent pictures of Henry at 5 months...enjoy!

This picture, below, was the last picture of all three of my boys (so taken two weeks ago). It is maybe one of my favorite pictures ever. Jack is thought of very much, but I know that he is doing great in his new home! We miss you, buddy!