Playing with fire

John added an awesome fire pit this summer, and we put it to good use.  The kids liked playing around it.

and also loved making and eating s'mores.  Kate and Liam just liked eating the marshmallows and graham crackers.  Liam probably ate 5 s'mores worth of stuff.

Jared LOVES s'mores, too, and needed to make sure he got his fill, which he did, eating 5 on Friday and 3 more on Saturday.  I guess that's where Liam gets it from.

On Saturday night, we made tinfoil dinners.  They were absolutely delicious and cooked perfectly!!!  There were a few of the dinners that were very, very spicy!  

We had some nice, relaxing evenings around the campfire.

until the kitten came the last day.  We weren't sure where it came from, but it was quite comfortable around all the kids and it was quite comfortable.  Fortunately, John and Vicki's neighbor Cheryl (who Vicki works for as well) came to the rescue and brought it to find a home.

We were pretty fortunate with our weather.  Thursday through Saturday we ended up either grilling or using the fire pit.  Each day, right about the time we started, a storm rolled in.  On the 4th, we were flipping burgers and hot dogs in the rain.  On the 5th, right after the fire was started, the rain came through, but we were dry for s'mores.  And on the 6th, a huge storm rolled by, just missing, and we only got a little wet.  It was nice, though, to get the cool temperatures that followed.