The Events of Thursday, October 7, 2010 

          On this fine, cool, crisp morning, we awoke with the rain pattering on the roof of our RV where it sat on Loon Lane, in Lost River Valley RV Park, in North Woodstock, New Hampshire. We sat cozily, while the wind and rain continued to pound our windows, and made our way through a breakfast of leftover pancakes. The rain continued during our showers and while we finished watching The Princess and the Frog from last night. It rained all the way to 10 o’clock, when we sat down to plan out our day. Our original plan had been to hike today, but decided that it wouldn’t be too pleasant to hike muddy trails with the rain and low clouds hiding all of the great views and colors of the White Mountains (even though, according to Ben, they’re kind of an orange yellowish green, but pay him no mind). So, therefore a day of rest, relaxation, and no hard work began.

          At first, we kept to our little motto of relaxation. We read, had quiet times, rested, stared off into space, and overall did absolutely nothing. Then the laptop got pulled out and we edited pictures and wrote blogs. We didn’t have any internet access which was disappointing as we ALL want to catch up on our emails. We stopped at noon for a soup lunch. We had mouthwatering chicken gumbo, creamy tomato soup, and toe tingling cream of mushroom. We complimented our gourmet soup-out-of-can meal with juicy apples and crispy carrots. As a treat for dessert we had the best processed vanilla and chocolate cream cookies and were truly satisfied as we headed out for a walk. It had rained throughout the morning up to this point and though the air was cool and crisp, the sun now beamed down as we walked through the leaf strewn, muddy pathways under magnificent yellow and orange archways. We walked down to the Lost River that ran through the campground and started looking for passageways by rock to the other side of the river. Caitlin was the first to make it across and crossed the most times of all of us. Ben and Abby both crossed once, but I never found a passageway across that was of my liking, although I did manage to get wet, as did all of us but Ben. Daddy took pictures of us climbing, falling, walking, and laughing together. When it was about time for us to head back to the RV, Abby and Caitlin headed back across the river for one last adventure. There was a tricky point in this crossing right near the shore where the rocks were scarce and the rocks that were in existence were either under water or extremely slippery! Abby, making an attempt to jump to the elevated shore slipped and landed with both feet planted in the water and knees deep in mud on the bank. She desperately grabbed for something to hold onto and finally found a small tree which almost snapped under her weight. She screamed for help while Caitlin doubled over in laughter behind her on a big rock and the rest of us watched from at least 30 feet away. I was the closest to her, and so I went towards her. I stopped halfway and pulled out my camera, told her to hold still and smile and snapped a few shots. Then I helped her up and we started back. After Abby was safe and sound, Ben tried to help Caitlin over with a long stick. She got one foot on the rock she was aiming for, but couldn’t pull the second one up. So both Abby and Caitlin ended up with soaked shoes and muddy pants. As we walked, Abby was still complaining about her misadventure. All of us girls were pretty muddy and wet, so we did a load of laundry and then headed into the RV to warm up and to do our Mark study. We dissected two stories about Jesus and then pulled applications from them. After we had finished, Mommy started to cook dinner, and the rest of us did math with Daddy. After an hour of math, dinner was ready and we relished the warm meal of teriyaki chicken, rice, and vegetables. For dessert, we finished off Mom’s homemade apple crisp. While Caitlin did dishes, we read and blogged. Once she was finished, we pulled out the games, but we couldn’t make up our minds about which to play. So we played three different games: Uno, which I won, Bananagrams, which Mom won, and Imaginiff, which Mom also won. We got ready for bed and went to sleep, with the rain still pattering on the roof of our RV where it sat on Loon Lane, in Lost River Valley RV Park, in North Woodstock, New Hampshire.