Over at Unplug Your Kids, there is a broad weekly theme thrown out. The idea, that you will run with it and spend some unplugged time with your kids. Our summers tend to be unplugged by nature, but we decided to play along. (Although the extra incentive in the grey winter will surely be welcomed. I can imagine weeks of homeschool fun centered around a theme.)
So this week's theme word was : ROUGH.
Oh, ya, we can do that! Fortunately camping provides many opportunities.
We're baking bread sticks over the coals, to be later slathered in honey butter. But the bread never really cooked through, so we skipped the honey butter. That was rough. And just look at the dirt on Ruby's knees - rough!
Our main agenda of the camping trip was for Jenson to use his new skimboard out on the tide pools. He waited, and waited, and waited. The tide never went out past the rocks. Rough. (Note to self: check the tide tables next time. Who knew Birch Bay had days in a row without a low tide?)
But not as rough as Mady's fortune, unable to go into the water with her newly broken foot. (Thanks for all the well-wishes for her. She broke her foot while riding her brother's Razor).
Jenson creatively filled up his waiting time by teasing me with fake snakes. Some days I do not think I will love age 8, but then I realize he is doing exactly what I imagine an eight year old boy should. Like tormenting all the girls around him, (which is a precise total of three - his mother and sisters). When he is not busy with the tormenting aspect, he graciously takes the time to teach his small sister. And teach he does. Fun new words, like buttocks, except pronounced Butt-Ox. I digress.
But the last event of our day proved to be the roughest. See this nice deck area I am relaxing on, overlooking the Semiahmoo spit? I was mostly stuck there because of the snake I saw slithering over a driftwood log down below on the beach. Because I am absolutely terrified of snakes. Probably beyond terrified. So I stayed here, perched on this higher ground, pretending that the snakes couldn't reach me.
And to round out the rough-ness of our camping adventures, I'd like to give an honorable mention to Forgotten Tent Stakes. Nice. We made-do with some over priced nails bought at the little local convenience store. But top honors in Roughing It Week belong to: Creepy Dude in the next site over, who had no tent, but slept in his car, more of a drifter than a camper, I presume. His picnic table, well-stocked with cheap beer. He had a nasty case of smoker's cough. (And is there such a thing as smoker's spit? He had that too). Gross and creepy, and certainly qualified as rough. In a moment of weakness while contemplating Creepy Dude, I questioned my abilily to camp without Mr. Ellars, but alas, we survived.
And, despite all of that, we still love camping. There were a million things more that weren't rough at all.
Don't forget to scroll back to enter the Imagination Kits giveaway. :)
