Focht Family Blog

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!!

It feels  like I have gone back in time 2 years. We are on the road driving from DC back to our seasonal site in Pennsylvania. Since we only have the truck with us, Nathan is driving and I am relaxing. I definitely like traveling in the RV much better when I don’t have to drive long hours! :)

I did work on pictures while we were sitting in DC the last couple of days while Nathan was working in Baltimore but the connection at the campground was too slow for me to put the pictures up on the server, so now that they are up I will go back and try to do some catching up today.

If I don’t get all the way through my pictures this is what we have been up to…. Samantha turned 11 in August and Timmy turned 8 in September! We left last week and spent a week at Hershey where Nathan and I enjoyed our annual spa day. Then we made lots of chocolate for Timmy’s birthday and explored the RV show where I think we have decided what our next home will be. Nathan has designed a 45′ fifth wheel with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths! We just have to finalize our decision as to who will build it and then come up with the down payment.

Next we drove to DC and spent 3 days as tourists. We toured the White House, Washington Monument, the Museum of American History, the Museum of Natural History, the Air and Space Museum, the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, the Vietnam War Memorial, the Franklin Roosevelt Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the Capitol building, and the National Archives. All in all… in 3 days we walked 26.4 miles!! No wonder the kids kept saying their legs were tired!

Now we are headed back to Pennsylvania to finish off the season. We will head back to Georgia in November but we won’t make it back to Statesboro until November 30 so we can spend some time in Atlanta visiting my brother. Now to catch everyone up with pictures from this summer….

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…