My Dad came out for a week in June and we concluded the visit with an awesome trip to San Juan Island! My Dad was quite a trooper dealing with all the activities which surround having boys – from eating messes, body noises, hockey in the house, roller hockey games, and going to watch me ride in a lesson. He really got into all the action, enjoyed all our routines, and we had so much fun catching up with him. I loved all the camping tips, like how to roll a tent and tie it up (so you don’t have to deal with the stuffing-fiasco that the tent bag always is), kitchen patrol (Dad was KP boss!), and how to properly embellish ice cream (sauer kraut or jalapeno jam, anyone?).

Here are a couple shots. Please visit the album for the full tour! (Images are uploading now!)

Camp is all set up!

Sunset over British Columbia.

American Camp is an enormous National Park. We were really impressed with its expansive beauty for such a small island.

Did you know that you can roast socks to dry them out? Ben suggested that the rainy evening was due to my stinky sock evaporation. I can see his point! But I thought it was pretty frontier-girl of me. 😉

One attempt at a family photo!

My birthday present to myself is to do something unusual, learn a new skill, or just do something that makes me nervous. In Hawaii I enjoyed trail riding (horse) with a few girlfriends, a Hawaiian canoe paddle, a long run, etc. Here I have done a couple things, like paddle boarding, and last summer I rode my bike down stairs at the school because I’d seen the 10 yr old boys do it. Looked fun, but I didn’t want to when a ton of kids were watching, so I waited for summer then rode down them. A bit nerve-wracking. You want to go somewhat fast, and not turn your front wheel. Then I had this image of myself biking UP the stairs. I got halfway up and toppled. This year I knew it had to be the climbing gym. Lots of little kids go there for their birthdays, and the grownups watch. I have always wondered if I could do it – strength, agility and fear of heights were concerns. Well…today was the big day! Dad is in town, so I took the two boys and Dad for the adventure. It was SUPER fun!!!!

Cameron is my belayer. He’s telling me the commands to use. I’m thinking of Uncle Tom here, big time!

I’m motoring on up the wall. I found that if you just keep going, it gets less scary. If you stop and think, you get a little nervous. Better to keep thinking about the next hand hold and not look down. I wore my riding gloves for inspiration. This wall cannot buck, so it’s far less scary than an annoyed grey mare can be! I did three different routes and a total of four climbs. I will be back again! This was a really memorable experience.

I’m even more proud of Sam than I am of my feat. He is very nervous about heights and still he asked if he could climb. He tried several times and got higher each time. It sure takes guts to challenge yourself to overcome a fear. Kudos to you Sam! You made it more than halfway up this time!

Sam, Hap and Eli getting some good coaching from Jeremy McCann during a D2 game. They got to “play up” because the next division up had a team short on players. It was a great experience for them! Very hot, and second game in the heat, but they did fine. I think they actually won even though technically the team had to forfeit due to the roster change.

Ben (on the right) is climbing all the way up to the top! He is so brave! I don’t think I could do this. It’s a local climbing gym where a friend was having his birthday. I may need to try for my birthday. I always do something that I’m nervous about doing on my birthday. It’s a tradition…Maybe Ben will coach me?

The boys and I had a pretty productive Sunday. Ben and I sold 9 dozen eggs – took some work. People were really not in a buying mood. We had to work our sign spinning pretty hard. They must not realize eggs are in demand in the East Coast area due to avian influenza killing off 46 million birds. Oh well. I didn’t price-gouge 😉 Then we fixed a broken sprinkler timer, and finally cleared the trails of massive spring overgrowth. Sam had the machete, Ben his favorite clippers and me a weird golf-club like machete thing.

Just as we drove home from picking Dave up at the ferry (he’s been in Connecticut), Dave goes “There’s a raccoon in the coop!” I could not believe it. Truly. We drove up JUST as the marauder was in attacking our birds. A few feathers were lost, but all the birds were ok. Seriously a miracle. I went back out with the staple gun and repaired the fence. Mommy was already a little tired and cranky from end-of-school insanity, but this did me in! Thankful I still have a flock, what with the bird flu and all!!!! I was not pleased that my friends the coyotes were back, literally howling as I stapled. JERKS! No licking your lips over chicken dinner!!! I will howl back at you. I have before. You just wait…

Oh – the lucky coin bit. We hide things for kids to find on Halloween. It’s always fun to find them later…I actually found two coins and a dead opossum. Is that lucky?

The boys and I were out clearing trails of spring over growth and I found this in a pile of hair. Ick! It smelled a bit, but then I got past that and the biologist in me got super interested. There were wormies crawling around decomposing the carcass, and I found the whole skull and jaw bones. Even a paw! All were connected by what was left of the backbone. I carried it off to hang it all from a stump so I could find it later (would also be a super cool Halloween decoration, right?). Then I found SCAT! Wow! The picture was complete. Here are my artifacts on a mossy log. Dave is disgusted. I should probably not mention I actually did think about cleaning it up and bringing it in to my little “artifact shelf” in our entryway. I Googled the jaw bone and think it’s an opossum.