Our Island In The Sun

Well is it too much to WISH that it was "our" island. If I were to ever win a bunch of money, buying a house on Anderson Island along this lake would be top on the priority list. Everything about it is perfect. It is a little lake surrounded by beautiful homes on a quaint island a short ferry ride away from the mainland. It is the easy vacation to plan. We throw some swim stuff in the car, drive onto a giant boat and then within minutes we are in another place, far from home enjoying the good old life. I love that the water is warm enough to swim in (even for me and that's saying something). I really love that there is a shallow section surrounded by boardwalk and equipped with a slide and and a sandy beach for the little kids. And then to make it even better they have platforms and rigging out in the lake for big kids. There isn't a lot of motor sport going on to add noise and chaos either. We bring the dutch oven, start up some ribs, play games at the picnic table...maybe a game of Bocci and enjoy the summer sun. It is perfect. I short write real estate adds for Anderson Island homes. Seriously I love this place. I think we went three times this summer. I get great pleasure in bringing friends who are then dumbstruck that such a wonderful place is so close to home. It's destinations like this that make me LOVE my state!!!

This time we had friends with kayaks with us. I must get my hands on a pair of kayaks! They are the bomb. I thought canoes were awesome. Kayaks are lighter and easier to handle. I think we will have to add some to our already too full garage soon. The kids had a blast playing pirates boys against girls.

For a moment today reminded me of my beach going days with girlfriends in California. The company was awesome. Our kids were in heaven. Except there weren't any crowds!

Currency

Katie wanted me to take her to target on Saturday. Money was burning a hole in her pocket! She came down with 10 Mexican bills. I told her Mexican money wouldn't work. We had a little discussion about how she needed American money, the whole time she is swinging her arms and rolling her eyes around in her head barely keeping it together. I sent her upstairs to bring down the right kind of money. A few minutes later she comes sulking down the stairs in near hysterics (which Kate is getting really good at) because all she has is Mexican money and "Washington" money.

I knew she wouldn't understand but I couldn't stop myself from a few hysterical laughs at her expense before trying to explain. I still don't think she understands...

Exotic Creams

My girls are taking a bath. The "mommy" chore I hate the most. But a bath was necessary. Both Sara and Kate played outside all day today. Sara has what Dad calls, "Walmart" feet. And Kate has a peculiar odor about her. She spent her entire afternoon making exotic creams.

First she harvested flower petals. It is a good thing we have tons of flowers in our yard. I am amazed that the poor plants are somehow keeping up with their flower productivity in spite of all three girls (and all their friends) constantly picking. I just went out side to see what Kate has been up to all this time and stumbled upon her

little manufacturing plant. In one bowl she has her harvested flower petals. In another bowl some sawdust. I noticed her coming in the house several times to collect her "secret ingredient", my spray foam soap from Bath and Body. So with those three key ingredients...whala...EXOCTIC CREAMS!

I love her presentation. How cute is that, presenting her creams on a half shell.

I didn't say a word at all today about it to her. I bit my tongue several times when she came in through my master bedroom sliding door (a major no no) to collect soap.

I bit my tongue as I looked out the window and countless times saw her picking flowers (another no no...but I'm losing this battle - next ye

ar they will have their own cutting garden). I bit my lip as several of my bowls found there way into the yard and out of the comforts and protection of my kitchen (another no no). And I haven't said a word about all the sawdust covering the garage floor (another no no). I watched her playing creatively and peacefully all by herself and thought to myself let it go. I am proud of myself. Today I tried to be more like a dear friend of mine who is always letting her kids create and experiment.

So what do I have to show for it?

-some potent smelling "exotic creams"

-a load of laundry

-a bit of sweeping

-a daughter with a well exercised imagination

-and a really happy little girl who for the first time in weeks hasn't screamed about anything all day long

Camp Hahobas

In the words of Chase:

Camp was really great. I was really busy earning six merit badges. This year I earned wilderness survival, swimming, art, cooking, small boat sailing and first aid. I earned the second most merit badges in my troop!

My favorite thing about camp was small boat sailing. I learned that I really like sailing. One of the best things was that I got to do it all by myself. My Dad said that small

boat sailing was one of his favorite merit badges too. It was really annoying though

to try to teach someone else. They always thought it looked easy and thought they knew what to do. So they wouldn't listen to me. I couldn't teach them if they wouldn't listen and then they would end up capsizing th boat! With both of us in it.

My least favorite thing about camp was walking to my cooking place everyday. It was like two miles a way. I had to go there to work on my orienteering badge too. Way too much walking. By the end of the day every day I thought I was going to colapse!

Shooting at the Archery station was really hard. Only one person in the whole camp was able to qualify. They had the worst bows and arrows. They were all home made by the teenage counselor there. None of the arrows would fly straight.

They were way

smaller bows then mine. The arrows weren't flying with any force. They would just bounc

e off of everything. I got several bulls eyes but only one of them stuck.

Another badge I really liked working on was wilderness survival. I really wanted to do it because I thoug

ht I was going to be like Survival man. But they wouldn't let us bring food or even start our own fire. So I had to make a shelter and overnight with no fire. It wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be because we spent our whole night building our shelter and then went to sleep and we were done.

I had a lot of fun starting fires with my friends and making weapons for raccoon hunting. Raccoons were a really big pest

at the camp and so they gave us permission to scare away the

raccoons. We called it raccoon hunting. I never was able to

stay up long enough to do it. All of my badges were so spread out I had to do lots of walking.

The food was OK. Everyone else thought it was horrible though. The best night was pizza night.

Dad got to come down on the last day. That night our troop had a burping contest. I was lord of the burp. No one could even come close. They told us that who ever won was going to get a prize. But the prize

was cleaning the Kiabo A.K.A. bathroom. I never had to do it though because we had to leave and they hadn't gotten us the tool that we needed to do it.

Next year I am going to work on getting more

required merit badges. I might try the shot gun range too. But will have to see if we got to camp after my birthday because I will have to be thirteen. Being a Boy Scout is much better than being a Cub Scout. We get to do way better activities.