Back from the Wilderness

We returned last night, from our annual “Little Explorers Club” camping trip. This was the 3rd year of old friends and family uniting to subject themselves to dusty campsites, an abundance of poison oak, and swarms of yellow jackets with the sole purpose of exposing our little darlings to nature as it was intended.

A fun time was had by all. 

There were 2 year olds crushing on 7 year olds, 7 year olds crushing on 4 year olds, and 1 year olds wondering if they would ever be big enough to: Hop rocks in the creek, fall off said rocks and spontaneously swim in the creek, balance on a fallen log, catapult a fallen log, stay up late and toast marshmallows, eat S’Mores, sing songs in front of a campfire and then listen to a bedtime story under the stars.

Pitching tents, cooking outside, and wrangling upwards of 11 children under the age of 7 is no easy task, much less making sure that none of them have plunged into the deep end of the pool while the others are being slathered with sun screen. All in all, memories  were made and social skills were reinforced, for the children as well as for the adults. 

Nobody got much sleep, particularly on the third night, when those of us who were left converged on a California ridge top to tour an observatory which held - in the minds of babes - a rocket ship which was actually a telescope, and observed a few somethings about space. 

Yesterday morning, Tizzy confirmed our suspicions that he may in fact evolve into a rock climber, most likely a free climber just to keep his mother on her toes, when he scaled a rock cluster the size of a three story building and then belly slid down a 6 ft. portion of it, leaving him exhilarated and rearing for more. That child would fly if he had wings!

I’m now at home, making my way through the mountains of laundry and recognizing that the garage has, once again, gotten way out of control and it’s time for my quarterly sweep and purge.

I did not come back to a houseful of ants... just a few, but thank you all for sharing your sound advice. I did however come home to this:

Which means that Athena thinks I'm funny! To which I am thrilled, because Athena is just as funny as funny could be! Check her out at Hot Child in the Suburbs, and I'll be back tomorrow to pass it on.