Camp Tonsofun 2020 - Day 2

Day 2 of Camp Tonsofun was a big workday.  CLOTHES.  Clothes are always a pain in our house because with 8 people living in a country where closets aren't really a thing, life is HARD.  Wardrobes don't hold much, & we rely a lot on dressers.  We feel very blessed to have actually found a German house with a couple of closets.  They are small, but it's SOMETHING.  Both the boys & Trek & I have small closets.  The girls have to rely on 2 small wardrobes for 3 teenage girl's worth of clothes.

The boys got right to work cleaning out their closets & drawers.  We got rid of anything that no longer fit, or things with stains or holes.  Canyon just grew up into Craiger's size clothes so we got rid of all his old things.  It was perfect because now Bladen can have the top part of the closet to hang his shirts & Canyon/Craiger can hang their shirts on the bottom part since they're the same size now.

We also cleared out their drawers & got them organized & beautiful again.

The girls were a different story.  Teenage girls are the best thing in the world, but at the same time, they're a MESS.  Apparently my 3 girls have been stashing & hiding their shoe supply all over this house without me knowing.  We went around every room & gathered them all together & put them in one big pile.  Yeah.  They have WAY TOO MANY SHOES.  (I have a sweet sweet friend who mails shoes & clothes to us all the time.  She's adopted us as her family & she loves to spoil my girls especially.)  Well, we had almost 80 pairs of shoes (NOT COUNTING MINE).  The girls tried them ALL on.  Some they'd grown out of over the years, some were traded (Taya gave some of her shoes to Cadence & Lorien gave some shoes to Taya. I gave some of my shoes to Lorien).  It's fun to have so many girls all around close to the same size.  For every pair they decided to keep, they had to give away at least one pair.  This became an almost all day event because no girl wants to part with ANY shoes, but we managed & only wound up with about 10 pairs for each girl in the end.

Then, when discussing organizing clothes, the girls ran to the living room & grabbed one of our shelves in there, cleared it, then took the shelf into their bedroom (to hide more shoes. . . the stinkers).

They spent a good 3 hours organizing, cleaning, & getting rid of things they no longer needed.  It was great.

The treat for the day appeared after the kids cleaned up lunch.  (dishes, table, sweep, etc.)  I found these cute little Dinosaur & Trolls candy dispensers at our BX.

For our treat for the day, we made a huge fruit pizza which is one of my favorite desserts.  First we made sugar cookie dough.

Then we rolled it out & baked it, added strawberry cream cheese, & tons of our favorite fruits.

It was beyond delicious.

For our camp craft on day 2, we made Camp Tonsofun shirts.  The kids always LOVE making our camp shirts every year.  I grabbed red t-shirts from the boys' closets (they all had a plain one), took one from my closet & gave it to Lorien, then ordered a red shirt for Taya & Cadence so we'd all match.

They used neon puff pain to design their shirts.  They had so much fun being creative.

For Day 2's dinner we spotlighted Bladen.  His dinner pick was breakfast for dinner.  We made "bullseyes" which are pieces of bread with the center cut out & an egg is cooked in the middle.  He also loves apples & carrots so we added those as well.

Camp Tonofun 2020 - Day 1

I was SO excited to be able to do Camp Tonsofun this year.  It's been 2 years since we've done it due to 2 consecutive moves at the beginning of summer.   Camp Tonofun is our family camp that we do the first week of summer to get the house clean, organized, & ready for summer vacation.  We've done it since Cadence was about 4 years old.  Now all the kids realize that it's a "CLEANING CAMP," but there's also treats, games, crafts, & more so they stick with it & humor me.

For our first day, the big "chore" was making a chore chart that everybody could agree on.  Lately there's been a lot of talk (especially amongst the teenagers) about the chores being fair, effective, & reasonable.  So we sat down for about an hour & discussed what chores needed to be done each day, their difficulty level, & how to balance them effectively between a 7 year old all the way up to a 17 year old.

Each day during the camp, a special treat will "appear" when the kids do one of their assigned chores for the day.  They never know which chore it will be be so it's a great way to make sure ALL chores are done. Day 1's chore was making their bed.  Once all the beds were made, Kinder eggs appeared on their beds with notes that read "You did an EGG-cellent job of making your bed.  I love you!"

This year the kids wanted to incorporate more baking into Camp Tonsofun, so we made a treat every day of the week.  Day one was no-bake cookies.  The girls taught the boys what to do & everyone got some much needed baking experience.

For our camp craft, I got my sewing machine out & we each made our own face masks.  All my kids know how to use a sewing machine which makes me happy & proud.  The masks were a great way to explain some new techniques & sew on the curve a little bit.  They all did a great job.

At night, we always spotlight one of the kids.  I make their favorite dinner or their choice of food for dinner, & we tell them what we love about them.  Day 1 was Canyon's special night.  He wanted Southwestern Pasta Salad with cornbread & broccoli.

And that completes DAY 1.  Exciting right?  I love Camp Tonsofun.

June Fun

June was a busy month which was wonderful.  We did so many fun things which you'll see in future blog posts.  We've taken advantage of the beautiful summer, the lessening of COVID travel restrictions, & school being out.  We're having a blast.

One thing we love to do is take walks through the fields & forests behind our house.  We're always finding new trails to explore & love it.  Canyon loves our Sunday walks.

Trek & I have become addicted to running & biking through the trails we find.  We usually run 4-5k on a good day & we just can't get enough of the beauty around us.

And in June we BOUGHT BIKES.  Well, kind of.  Since the restrictions with COVID are so strong here in Germany, the only thing people CAN do it walk or ride bikes.  As soon as the bike shops opened back up the end of May, everybody bought out every bike in the entire country.  We have a favorite little bike shop here run out of a guy's house & we were able to ORDER 2 bikes.  It's now July & we're still waiting on them (they should come in the last week of July), but we are SO excited to get them in.  They are German mountain bikes with great shocks, disc brakes, 22 gears, & they were made for German trails.  And get this. . . . mine it being customized to me.  I'm SO short that I've always had a really hard time riding bikes.  The bike I got is a lovely turquoise & red color & they're making me an extra small frame so it FITS my height & leg length.  I'm SO excited.  Here's pics of the models we ordered.  Once it gets here, Trek is putting an electric kit on the centre bar which will turn the bike into an e-bike (which is SUPER popular here in Germany).  I love to ride, but I can only do about 10 miles before I get completely worn out on these crazy hills here.  Adding the kit to my bike will add an electric motor that will allow me to go longer distances without tiring.  I love it because I can use my bike like a regular bike as long as I can, then I flip the switch & it becomes motorized & I can continue 160 more km without even trying.  Trek & I love the LONG bike rides so it's perfect to allow me to keep up with him.  Soon, we're planning a 120 mile bike ride along the Rhine or Mosel River.  It's going to be AMAZING.

Taya has been practicing up a storm on her viola.  She's doing SO well.  It's fun to see her learn & grow.

So this is just a few of our random June items, but stay tuned for Camp Tonsofun & our Trips.