Chilling with the Cameron Kids

 Shonna and Blake recently had a marvelous wedding anniversary trip.  They did a bike trip from Montreal, Canada to Quebec City, Quebec.  They biked a total of 211 miles.

Blake's parents stayed with the kids from Saturday to Wednesday morning.  We drove up after Keynotes on Wednesday (arriving there about 6:30pm) and stayed with them Wednesday evening through Sunday night.  We had such a wonderful time with these great kids.  We love them so much.

Shonna and Blake sent pictures while on their adventure.

Nine year old Gabe.  What a kid.  He is a character.  These kids all have chores to do each day.  If they do them, they get a treat in the evenings.  He decided that to be fair, we needed to do chores, too.  So he wrote us each a list of chores to do each day and posted it on the fridge.

Ken had to read his scriptures, read for 20 minutes, do 20 push-ups and 20 sit-ups.

I had to read my scriptures, practice the piano, and "since you can't do push-ups Grandma, you have to read for 30 minutes!"  "Oh, no!  Don't make me read 30 minutes," (Don't throw me in the briar patch!)  I protested.  But he wouldn't relent.  

Each day, he read through the list and followed up with us. We get such a kick out of him.

During a huge percentage of their downtime, this is what we saw.  These kids are all readers and fill their spare time with books, books, books.  They have stacks of library books piled in the living room and they work their way through them.  They also borrow books on Libby and read on the Ipad.

On Saturday afternoon, Lily and Hannah disappeared downstairs for a couple of hours.  At one point, Hannah came up to get something and I asked her what they were doing down there.  "It's a surprise" she said.  A while later they came back up and presented me with this heart they had made.  That heart touched mine.

The lighting caused a blurry picture, but this is the heart with Hannah and Lily in the background.

Another fun picture of Blake and Shonna.

Caleb is on the high school mountain biking team.  On Saturday, Ken drove him up the mountain to compete in a mountain biking competition.  They were gone all day.

Caleb did really well, improving his time considerably and moving up in his placement.  He was so happy when he got home.

He told me later that he didn't want to be an adult and have all that responsibility.  He just wanted to eat and ride his bike!  

He said that, but he is a very responsible kid.  I watched him take a lot of responsibility with his parents gone.  He had things under control when we arrived on Wednesday night.  Each night he made sure the house was locked up, the dog fed and in his crate, and the lights out.  He is a good kid.

Grandpa was Caleb's cheerleader.  He enjoyed the day on the mountain and getting to know Caleb's biking friends.

That evening, after Caleb and Ken got home, Caleb showered and then he and Lily went to their Chinese teacher's house for a huge Chinese party with all kinds of delicious Chinese food.  I guess she puts on this big party every year.

On Sunday, we all piled in the van and drove two hours to Idaho Falls to attend Nathan's mission "Farewell."  Stay tuned for the post on that.