In honor of our eminent departure for our annual two week camping trip up in the take-my-breath-away Rockies, I share the last batch of photos from our last camping trip.
Well, it's really not the last batch I want to share. There are others. I just don't ever seem to have enough time to do all the things I want to do. When I think about it, that's a good thing. It would be dismal day in the life of Sara if I had enough time. In fact, I know I would come up with a while new thing to do if I ran out of too much stuff to do. Like the three PHP/wordpress programing books I just bought. Another 1,000 pages of nothing-that-interests-most-people stuff and I'm terribly excited to read them over my two week vacation. Along with the Photoshop CS4 book I'm bringing and another How To photography book. I'm sure I'll get to none of them while I'm up there.
I'll probably just do this...
Hang out by the camp fire poking a stick in the flames. Moving logs around because, you guessed it, the fire wouldn't keep burning if someone didn't keep poking it. Generally that is Jack's and Will's job. Dave steps in every now and then too. So I actually end up sitting back and watching them. That's not a bad job either.
This has become one of the boys favorite things to do - hunt for and collect wild flowers. They have books where they can look up their names. They (we) take pictures of them and they put them in cups to pretty up our mess tent.
Ok, it's not really a mess tent. It's one of those car port canopies - aka make-shift garages - you can buy at Costco. They only take three hours to put up. We have two of them.
And it wouldn't be a camping trip without a slew of off-road vehicles. Dirt bikes, ATVs, 4-wheel drive utility vehicles - we have them all. And boy do they make it so much easier to get up to the top of a mountain. I'm not sure I could ever get myself to actually hike up to 12,800 feet. If I did, it would be more like walking... or okay, crawling. Actually, I'd make it up a short ways then I'd just lay down and tell them to wake me up on their way back down.
And don't panic. We don't ride with the kids on the dirt bikes. That's just Nate giving Brooklynn a quick ride around camp. No, we just buy them their own dirt bikes when they reach six. If you told me that a couple of years ago, I would have laughed. Now I just say, Great job, Jack. Here's a pair of elbow pads.
Jack is a cutie, isn't he? Everyone warns me that I'm going to have trouble with him when he gets older. You know, with girls calling, hangin' out, and generally disrupting our daily routines. What? When's he's older? Hell, I have trouble now! He gets more pink birthday invitations that probably any boy on earth. Oh mom, he says, all they want to do is kiss me. ...sigh.
Okay, back to camp. Boys will be boys. They can play for hours with their big trucks in the dirt. Of course, mud is better, but a huge pile of dirt will do. They go up. They go down. All was good until I turned around and one of them was sitting in the dump truck about to launch off the mound. Stop! Turns out it wasn't their idea. Their cousin Katie had just done it. See girls make boys do craazzzyyyy things. I'm doomed.
This is Will... catching bugs. Bug catchers are the best thing since sliced bread. (Hm, if you heard me talk a lot, you'd know there are lots of things that are better than sliced bread. Sliced bread being the base measurement of all things cool.)
I'm sure you noticed the mud on his face. There was a glorious mud puddle at our camp site. Will sent most of his time in it. No, I didn't bathe them the whole five days we were there. That's the cool thing about have boys! Don't tell anyone, but I don't make them change their underwear every day either. (Come on, it's not so bad. They wear boxers.)
Anyways, lately I've been noticing a lot of similarities between Will and myself. He says 'hm' a lot. So do I. He needs everything in particular order. So do I. He can play by himself for hours. So can I. He is obsessed with numbers. I'm obsessed. He can play DS non-stop all day if we let him. I can play on the computer all day if Dave lets me. He spent hours combing the mud for stuff. I used to spend hours in a mud puddle looking for frogs. I was younger, of course. I'd name the frogs too. No girlie girl here.
Anyway, the list of similarities goes on. My mini me. Pretty darn cool.
And their cousin Brooklynn is no girlie girl either. She just reached down and pulled some worms right out of the ground. And that was that. They were cool. She showed them to everyone. We all oh'd and ah'd. A women after my own heart. I used to hunt for worms. Of course, my goal back then was to put them on a hook and fish for croppies and sunnies. (That comment ought to make many Minnesota people's heart get all warm and fuzzy.)
I was just thinking... Quiet now, this is important...
They say you can experience life in a whole new way through the eyes of a child. It is true... and what I love the most is it reminds me how I used to see every little thing as a big adventure. How I used to just relish in the moment and be fascinated by all the world had to offer. I guess in a way that's what photography is for me - a way to share what I see, what I experience, what I know as life.
Hm, just a thought.
This is Top Toss. Go out and buy this game if you don't have it. You throw those little balls on a string at the 'ladder' and score points by the rung you snag and the number of times it wraps. A must have for any gathering. Hours of fun for all ages. You'll laugh and cheer and just generally have a good time. It's kind of like a-good-time-in-a-bag. Everyone should have one of those!
Ah, the other thing we do around camp. Sleep. Well, at least the dogs do since most of the time they are exhausted from running around free, swimming in the river, catching balls, etc. The life of a dog is envious. Just being able to plop down in the muddy grass and take a nap. Ah, heaven.
And it wouldn't be camp if we didn't spend a good potion of our time watching the kids go around in circles on the little 50cc 4-wheeler. Round and round they go. Hours and hours of circles. Do you remember when you could have so much fun not going anywhere? Making no progress... Ending up exactly where you started... Ah, life through the eyes of a child.
See y'all in two weeks!
(And by the way, Mo, what's wrong with typos? Typos are a sign that a person has an incredible depth of character. The more typos, the more character! At least that is what I keep telling myself.)
