Focht Family Blog

The dogs were being so cute the other day so I had to take some pictures. Here is Dory in one of her new favorite places to lay down…

And here is Tinkerbell and Dory cuddling together on their doggy beds…

I am so proud of both of them. They have finally figured out where to go potty and what NOT to chew on. We haven’t had either of them in a crate for over two weeks now. I threw Tinkerbell’s crate out while we were in Vermont because the door was broken anyway. We think Tinkerbell is a year old now. The information we received from the Humane Society says that they thought she was born in September last year. They found her in a ditch with her brother at about 5 weeks old but that is just the vet’s best guess as to how old she was when she was found, so…. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TINK!!!

While Nathan was at work the kids were at play! :) We were actually getting a lot of schoolwork done but after school was done each day the kids wanted to go to the pool. Here is a view of Lake Champlain from the pool…

The kids were all over the place so this is the best picture I got with all three of them in the same frame…

Samantha and Timmy were determined to figure out how to do a hand stand in the water. This was the best that I could get of Samantha. She isn’t having a lot of luck figuring it out because she is trying to do it one handed so she can plug her nose with the other hand…

Timmy was having a bit more success…

One of the wonders of nature that Timmy found going to the pool one day was a snake. We still aren’t sure where his home was although Timmy did later find a small hole near the back of our RV…

I don’t think it was poisonous at least. Samantha and I studied plants in science this week so we were also able to find examples of each of the types of plants we studied while walking throughout the campground. It is so nice to be able to show her what we learn about because it really reinforces the lessons. :)

Sunday night I was able to visit with a friend of mine from high school days. She had moved near to where my mom’s camper was being worked on so that was wonderful. Her name is Kim and she does reenactments of the French and Indian War so we are going to try to go to one of the reenactments next year so the kids can watch and learn. :)

Monday morning we picked up my mom’s camper. It is better than new. They fortified the area that broke with steel and also the other side so it wouldn’t happen again. Here is a picture of the same area that was broken…

The gentleman who was working on the repairs also noticed that my mom had a large gap where her water heater is instead of the compartment being flush with the camper so he repaired that as well…

After we picked it up we were back on the road again. We drove through Rhode Island on the way back to Vermont so we could check off another state and we had ice cream for dinner at Kimball’s! :) LOVE that ice cream!!

So… scouting is done for the summer. My mom had a bit of an issue with her camper that we noticed as we left Boston in June. One of the corners where the tie down system connects was tearing off. Here are some pictures of it…

We tried stopping by a RV dealership that was listed as a repair place for her camper manufacturer. They sent the pictures in to see if it would be covered and we were told by the dealership that it looked like water damage. The manufacturer said it looked like we had hit a speed bump??? I am pretty sure that a truck camper is supposed to be able to go over a speed bump! It was looking as if mom was going to have to spend a few thousand dollars repairing it. We decided to continue back to PA and call the manufacturer back.

Apparently mom had been speaking with the wrong person. The person she spoke with the next time told her that if she could get the camper to Winchester, VA that they would take care of it. Winchester is where they used to make the trailers on the east coast. Now they are just made in Oregon but they still have facilities and people who can repair in Virginia. She scheduled a service visit for August 17 (see… I am almost caught up). It ended up that we needed to go to Vermont for work so we left a little early so we could do some touristy visiting on the way to Vermont.

I have watched too many episodes of cake challenges on Food Network. Samantha wanted a Hannah Montana birthday. Since we had so many kids coming to her party (kids from Girl Scouts and from the camp) I made two cakes. The first one was a strawberry cake (her favorite) with cream cheese frosting that I designed into a guitar with the help of rice krispie treats for the neck, M & Ms for the knobs, and Twizzlers for the strings…

Here is her second birthday cake, yellow with chocolate frosting. This one isn’t anything special. I bought a cake kit from the Walmart bakery for it…

Here is a picture of the cakes together…