Family Camp 2012

We love Family Camp!!  Another fun year and I think every one of our good Park St. friends was in our circle of cabins!  It was great.  We wish we could have that kind of connection and fellowship on a more regular basis than once a year!  Would be nice to live in a circle of houses, though (the cabins are decent, but the mattress would have to be improved for long-term accommodation.  Maybe some heat in winter too ;).  The boys had a great time.  Meetings morning and evening, climbing wall, zip line, giant slip 'n slide, swimming, kayaking, fishing, sports, huge gym with gymnastics equipment (it's a summer camp for wealthy children).  Didn't take too many photos, but here are a few.

Owen loves the climbing wall.  No fear, right to the top.

Asher on the other hand, did not make it quite as far.  He said, "Enough!" at this point and then held on for a ride down.

 Reuel and Owen in a race to the summit:

Li'l Miss getting over one cold, and about to get another (from a fellow baby camper, alas!)

What just because I'm a girl I have to wear pink polka dots???

Highlight of each day:  Campfire!  Asher could not make it to a campfire.  We thought we'd let him, but he was literally melting into a puddle or one night physically falling over from tiredness.  Next year.

Family camp=lots of friends=fun.

Nature walk

There have been a couple of squirrely boys around here since all the summer trips have wrapped up.  Yesterday I attempted cleaning day.  After dousing the windows and storm door in enough windex to dissolve the vinyl, the boys dropped their towels and recommenced sibling rivalry.  Several similar experiments in attempting to bring the boys into useful occupation followed that one.  Today, I put Eden down for her morning nap and recruited the boys to pack their own lunches.  Let it be known:  3 year olds do not make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, they wear them.  Oh well!  I told them to get their scissors because they would need to do some cutting jobs on our outing.  Enthusiastic scissor-finding ensued, and as happens multiple times per day, one of the well-known phrases of childrearing was uttered:  DON'T RUN WITH THOSE SCISSORS!  We also found a box of envelopes and various other accoutrements needed to head to Great Brook Farm.  Great Brook is an absolutely wonderful spot, just 15 minutes drive from us, but it feels like a distant rural haven.  It is both a working farm with animals to feed, a state park full of hiking trails (and x-country skiing in winter), a pond for fishing and feeding fish and turtles, and a more-flavors-than-you-can-count homemade ice cream stand.  It's awesome.  With the promise of a picnic to motivate us, we headed out on a nature walk.  The boys thought my notion of collecting samples of wildflowers, placing them in envelopes, and taking them home to ID was inspired.  In actuality, it was a desperate spur-of-the-moment idea of something I could do with little preparation, less gear, and nearby.  I lucked out that it was brilliant!  We collected all sorts of flowers (2 of each!) including dandelions, which the boys would of course not pass up in favor of more interesting options.  There may have been a brush with some poison ivy despite my best efforts, but hopefully it was a light enough brush that we'll avoid that side-effect of our field trip.  We headed back for our picnic, a visit to the animals and...an ice cream.  2 of the 3 of us could afford to eat that ice cream...hmm.  I should have had a wildflower salad for dessert, but I caved.

Upon returning home, I learned that young boys do actually want to sit with their mother while she attempts to identify flowers.  And, Owen actually snagged a couple of the ID's while we scanned through a photo library.  I had to somewhat forcibly send them off to play when they got so fidgety they were driving me and each other nuts, but refused to leave before we had found each flower's name.  Some of them turned out to be tricky (for me, a complete reject in the flora department...seriously, I never thought we would be doing something like this...evidence of the lengths a mother will go to in order to keep the restless ones occupied!) and I just finished finding them after bedtime.  Reuel could not imagine that I was completing the task, but it was sort of like a puzzle and I became mildly obsessed with finishing!!  In case my Aunt Sue (shout-out!) is reading this, here is what we brought home:

Dandelion
Clover
Pokeweed
Queen Anne's Lace
Impatiens/Touch-me-not/Spotted Jewelweed
Polygonum
Orange Coneflower
Eastern Daisy/Fleabane
Celandine/wood poppy
Douglas Catchfly
Winged Lythrum

I'm sure nothing very exotic, but it was a fun outing.  I was, however, just wondering why my face was itching, and realized it was probably something from the flowers on my hands that is incompatible with skin...hope a face wash will take care of that!  Unfortunately, the camera had autofocus turned off and I couldn't figure out what was going on.  So a fuzzy pic.

Photos after Eden's Baptism 8/19/12

Buggy Boarding

Owen was begging for a surfboard, but he finally contented himself with a 'buggy board' as he persisted in calling his newfound hobby during our trip :)  This clip is from his earlier attempts.  He was catching some intimidating waves a little later on!  (I don't mean curling breakers, here, but still, a few times he got pummeled by a wave and stuck underwater for 3 or 4 seconds, and he got right back on the board.  We were rather impressed (and surprised!).  Click below link for video!

https://vimeo.com/47425143

And a few randoms

 New bows from the Edwards family.  If one is cute, four are cuter!  At least that's what 5 year old boys think.

Rope swing will be much missed come winter.

Lobster is $2.99 per pound folks!  We were checking out the pinching power with a chopstick.  Boys love bugs.

I have not mentioned the garden, but it has been this summer's Owen-obsession.  The boy LOVES gardening, and checks every aspect of it in detail daily.  The boys mostly eat the produce off the plants before anything makes it indoors.  However in this shot, we had just gone blueberry picking at a local farm, where the proprietors had laid out rows of samples of their cherries for people to try.  Owen promptly came home, picked off all the snow peas he could find, broke them in half and filled a tray with samples.  Then Reuel, Asher and I were forced to eat a lot of raw snow peas.  :}

OBX 2012 in pictures

So, the heart of this story is...my sister is generous, fun-loving, and all-around awesome!!!!!  For her '29th' birthday, she rented a giant beach house in the Outer Banks, NC and invited many incredibly wonderful friends, and she even included my mom and li'l ol' us!!  It was such an out-of-our-league treat.  The beach was absolutely beautiful, big surf, pleasant water, gorgeous sand...just great. We were steps from the beach, a pool at the house, a mini-golf course around the pool (of all things!).  We took our first loooong road trip to get there, and well, that was more adventure than anyone wants.  But we made it!!  Once we got there, it was like heaven, with a houseful of helpful women loving on our kids and often giving us a break from the childcare tasks (how will 2 young boys be molded by spending a week with beautiful swimsuited women fawning over them?  Hmm!!).   So...some pix!  Not many at the beach, unfortunately.  I think I have some video of Owen boogie boarding (his new love in life) that I'll post asap.

Asher turned 3 when we were there!  Our sweet guy did not like all the attention at first, but then he got into it ;)

Caroline cuts cake!

Asher's new girlfriend, Katrina.  A sweet pair!

Sarah hitting the green.

Sir Asher, the Three!

Owen was UTTERLY excited about this giant rainbow.  He loves rainbows.  He draws them.  He talks about them.  HE FINALLY SAW A *REAL* ONE!  In fact, he requested this picture be taken with him in it so he could "print it out and put it in my wallet."  He in fact said while gazing at it, "Maybe God sent this rainbow just for me to see it!"

Everybody loves the water!  (Beach, not as much, for the under 1 and over 50 crowd ;)

If there's gear, Owen will be wearing it.  He learned to swim on our trip!  I could not get him to do a thing, of course, but he set his mind to learning himself and sure enough, made some major progress.  Then, he wanted to swim all day every day while we were at my mom's house (after the beach week, we spent another 1.5 weeks at her place!) just to work on his skills.  When he wants something...no stopping him!  Happy Birthday Debbie!!!  And thank you VERY much!

Pic worth 1000 words

You mean...I'm the ONLY GIRL???  And there's no trading...for the rest of my LIFE??? 

Saturday Challenge

Everyone's at the park, and I went to clean up rooms.  Found this taped to Owen's bed.  Can't decipher it!  I will ask Owen when he gets home.  First commenter to get it right wins a virtual gold star!