Focht Family Blog

One of the big reasons we decided to visit New York was so that we could celebrate Samantha’s and Timmy’s birthdays with my in-laws and Nathan’s older sister and our niece. Nathan’s younger sister and her friend came to visit at the same time so we had a huge birthday party. Since we celebrated Josh’s half birthday this year we decided to add him to the mix as well. I arranged for us to go to a place called Young Chef Academy where everyone learned how to make pizza dough and then we all made our own pizzas. Then we decorated cupcakes. I wanted to find something that Josh would enjoy but that wouldn’t be boring for Samantha and Alex. Even the adults enjoyed the night.

Here is a picture of Samantha showing off her goodies from her bag. I bought all of the kids a personalized apron, a chef’s hat, an oven mitt, a spatula, a rolling pin, and a pizza cutter…

Here is a picture of our niece Alex and her dad Jim…

And all of the kids sitting down before we got started…

Here is Joshua helping to mix the dough…

Here is a picture of everyone that I could get in one shot…

Here is a picture of the biggest “kid” rolling out his pizza…

Samantha and Alex working on their masterpieces…

And the bigger kids finishing their pizzas…

Another picture of the kids while their pizzas were baking…

Now for the cupcakes…. I took a picture of each of the kids with their cupcakes that they frosted themselves…

When we were in New York visiting my in-laws we decided to take a cruise down the Erie Canal to go through the locks. Here are a couple of views going down the canal…

And some pictures of everyone sitting on top of the ship…

Here is a picture of an old grain silo that they have converted into an office building. I thought that was a cool thing to do with a grain silo…

Here are some pictures of the locks going each way…

During the trip we had to go under quite a few low bridges. When we were approaching they would remind everyone up top to not stand up. Here is a picture I took as we were about to go under one of the low bridges…

I don’t feel old enough to have a child who is 11. Can I just tell them they can’t have any more birthdays?? My beautiful daughter is now taller than my mother and quickly catching up with me. She can wear some of my shoes but they are starting to get too small for her.

This summer Nathan’s younger sister, Christina, moved into my in-laws Winnebago and has been camping at our campground so she could go to the back doctors that took care of me because her back was in such bad shape. She had already had two surgeries on her back. Anyways, because she is at our campground my mother-in-law drove up with Christina’s friend, Bridgette, so Samantha had Aunt Christina, Own Grandma, and Aunt Bridgette at her birthday which made her very happy!

Here is Samantha waiting to open her presents…

Here is a picture of Samantha’s dessert choice. We had strawberry cupcakes (her favorite cake). Half of them had strawberry frosting and the other half had pink colored vanilla frosting with sprinkles…

Samantha received a Nintendo DSi, and a new game from us. Aunt Christina and Aunt Bridgette got her a case for the Nintendo and a purse to carry it in. Here is Samantha showing her purse off…

After Samantha’s birthday we left for New York to spend the week with my in-laws at their summer campground and to have a big joint birthday party for all of the kids with the whole Focht side of the family. While we were driving Joshua crawled up onto the mound of my mom’s stuff and fell asleep. I couldn’t resist taking a picture… or I should say my mom came and woke me up from a nap and forced me to take a picture! :)

On to New York….

One of our neighbors at the campground has a boat and he offered to take us out one day. Here is a picture of my mom and Timmy sitting on the boat…

Here is Josh with his best friend Faith along with Faith’s mom and grandpa…

Even though Faith was afraid of going out on the float, our kids liked the idea of going for a ride. The first one to ride was Timmy….

He had a great time. We were worried about letting Josh go by himself so Timmy said he would go for another ride with Josh….

Then Samantha took a turn with Josh…

Then Samantha had the opportunity to go by herself…

We tried to convince Faith to go with Timmy or Samantha but she wasn’t going for it. After all of the fun the kids were tired out…

Nathan was just enjoying relaxing on the boat….

It was a great day shared with friends. Yet another reason I love my summer home so much!!

For the last day of Timmy’s overnight camp this summer he had a special award that he was receiving so we all went to see it. Camp Stambaugh has a triangle of trees and the only way you can enter the triangle is if you have spent 10 nights in a tent at the camp and have volunteered 10 hours working at the camp. Timmy is one of the younger campers to receive this award since most kids his age haven’t had a chance to spend enough nights at camp. Timmy has spent two weekends at Camp Stambaugh this year and two weekends last year.

Here is Josh standing with Timmy waiting for the ceremony to begin…

Here is Nathan and Timmy after they received their awards standing in the triangle…

Here is a closeup of Timmy with his new patch…

These are pictures of the creek that you pass over to get to the big fire where they had the end of camp skits…

And lastly…. here is Joshua showing off one of the treasures that Timmy shared with him…