Happy Birthday Allison!  This week Allison celebrated her 22nd Birthday(at GS camp). She was off the entire week to Harper's Ferry, a small historical town located on the Potomac river where Virginia, W Virginia and Maryland all come together. I've been there with the kids in the past on a tour and to hike the Appalachian Trail. Scott and Allison also went there during middle school for a historical tour as this was a hot spot during the Civil War. This time Allison was camping in the tree houses with her traveling Girl Scouts.  The lodges are built on stilts around large trees. The tree trunk is actually inside the lodge!  I was glad she had a chance to camp there since I missed scheduling the outing to the tree houses when I had my Girl Scout troop. Allison enjoyed being out on the large river for a 6 hour tubing adventure, along with a hike along the Applalachian trail. Although it was quite hot and they did not get far. But the girls all really enjoyed their trip and camping experience.

Allison celebrated her birthday on a Thursday, July 13. I had mailed her a Birthday celebration box that was waiting for her when she got back to camp. I included  some  butterfly sugar cookies and a large Chocolate Chip cookie decorated with roses to share with all her counselor friends. I also threw in some flip flops and a bamboo mat to use at camp, as well as some birthday balloons. We were holding the bigger family celebration for when she came home.  That was easier said than done. She had planned on coming home on Friday evening after dropping off all the campers via bus and van. Allison was following the chartered bus full of girl scouts on their way down to Annapolis after dropping off girls closer to Baltimore first. Unfortunately she got caught up in tstorms and heavy downpours which slowed down their progress, along with a bus accident. Seems their driver took a sharp turn on a country road and caught a car coming the other way between the bus and a small cliff. So they had to wait for a police report, another bus and the tow truck to pull the car away from the bus. She then had to drive her van back to GS camp to drop off staff about 1.5 hrs north of our house. She called at 11pm quite upset and exhausted and very much wishing to come home for the weekend. So Tom drove up to camp and picked her up(right after he got back from picking up Scott at work). They did not get home until after 2am.

Friday was quite a long day for Tom as well. He had taken Scott off to his driving test in the morning out in Frederick MD. We found that this office had a simple and fair driving assessment-30 mins on the road. Scott had spent the entire week practicing driving with Tom, especially practicing backing up. They eliminated the parallel parking assessment and switched to a 3 point turn, including backing into a narrow space. Guess the DMV figures cars are coming with the built in automatic parallel parking, so why bother. I think it is crazy, but then again, Scott passed his test and is an official driver now! Congrats Scott!

As soon as he got home I took him back to the doctor to have his ear checked. He had finished his medication for an inner ear infection while at Boy Scout camp, but his ear was still hurting and now leaking. Turns out he had an outer ear infection too. So now he had ear drops for a week. Anything to get him in shape for our upcoming vacation. Then he was off to work.

On Saturday we enjoyed a trip to Hershey Park. Allison wanted to join us, so Tom picked her up from camp the night before. We had free tickets to Hershey that expired at the end of the month, so this was our only chance to use them. First Allison opened her Birthday presents and had a piece of Brownie Birthday cake. We then spent a beautiful day at the Park, not too hot, and the kids got to ride a few roller coasters, eat Hershey chocolate and shop for goodies. And Tom and Allison enjoyed their summer Chevy Test Drives and free tshirts in the parking lot. We even took Cookie along with us and she hung out in the "Barking Lot" kennel during the day. This way we were able to feed her dinner and take her for walks and potty breaks during the day.

On Sunday, Tom was up early in the morning to drive Allison back to camp. I was off to work for the day to get a head start on our upcoming vacation. Scott was just getting off work! I volunteered Scott to house and dog sit for our neighbors. They were headed to Wisconsin but did not want to travel with their Golden Retriever, Ellie. She is a very sweet dog, but extremely afraid of tstorms. They wanted someone to be around in case any storms rolled in while they were away. So for the entire week, Scott played, fed and walked Ellie during the day, as well as took in the mail and trash cans. And at night he slept at their house with Ellie in the basement on a mattress on the floor they set up for the two of them. Fortunately we only had 1 tstorm roll in during the day, so Scott kept Ellie company while she attempted to sit on his lap in the basement!  Scott enjoyed his house sitting job, but did not get a whole lot of sleep. Ellie gets up around 5am to go outside which was Scott's #1 job(besides security for tstorms), and then after she had breakfast, he would come home and go back to sleep in his own bed!  We also had back up during the day in the form of neighbors that checked in on Ellie and her water and food bowls which came in handy when we were gone to Hershey Park for the day.