Thursday, July 22, 2010

All Stars Baseball Camp

Two weeks ago I went with Riley up to Anchorage for All Stars Baseball. Little League gave us a group camp site in Centennial Park. Although we were on the edge of town, only one road away from Glenn Highway, we still saw a fox early in the mornings. He did not seem afraid of us at all, so I think he's a regular. One of my friends said they put radar collars on some brown (Grizzly) bears to track their movement and they are all over Anchorage! Yikes! I am so glad they did not visit our camp.

The kids had a great time camping. The big boys played whiffle ball about 12 hours per day, when they weren't playing baseball at the Little League tournament. There were 4-5 families that stayed at the campsite and the rest stayed with friends in town. We shared meals, taking turns cooking and cleaning up. The campsite had showers, flush toilets and hot water! That is my kind of camping. I have an aversion to outhouses and port-a-potties. Enough potty talk.

There were plenty of siblings there for Chris and Maya to play with. Chris was in heaven, knocking down dead trees, dragging them back to camp and cutting them up for firewood. All the kids played with Maya, from the 7 year olds up to the 15 year olds. They took her to the playground at the campground and let her hang out in their motor home, trailes or tents. It was most helpful having them to play with during the games so I could watch Riley play.

Although I brought lots of snacks to the ball games, Maya was begging me for money to buy candy from the snack shack. I told her no and she begged some more. I told her to get a job. Next thing I know she comes back with a quarter and a penny! I asked her where she got the money. She found it under the snack shack which was up on a platform! So she bought herself a Tootsie Pop. A little while later, she found more money and bought herself an Airhead. Can you believe that girl? I don't think she will ever cease to amaze us with her tenacity and resourcefulness.


The starting line up, Riley is the short one in the middle. He is also the youngest.


Exchanging pins with a member of the opposing team, an act of friendship and good will.


Playing whiffle ball 12 hours per day.


The boys brought these dead birch trees from the woods to our camp.


Chris sawing logs. One mom clocked him cutting one section per minute!

Stacking firewood.


Maya got a grass cut on her chin, one of the few times she was sad all week.

















Thursday, July 1, 2010

Memorial Day Weekend, 2010

This year we went to a friend's cabin across the bay for Memorial Day Weekend. It was a great getaway for us as a family. My favorite part was that we were "unplugged" for 48 hours. Matt and I turned off our cell phones except to check for messages once a day. (I think Matt cheated and checked baseball scores one other time.) Without a TV or computer, the boys played games and doodled. Riley learned to play Cribbage and Chris learned to play Boggle. They also finished a Scrabble game with us for the first time ever.


It was very interesting to see how the boys responded to being away from civilization. When Karl dropped us off at the cabin and pulled away, the boys got a little anxious. Riley was most worried about running out of water. Chris expressed generalized anxiety for the first time in his life. We were making S'mores around a fire the first night when he said "I have a worried kind of feeling." After asking some questions, I figured out he was worried about us being all alone with no other people around. He seemed to feel better after I reassured him that Karl and other friends who lived in Halibut Cove were only a phone call and a short boat ride away.


We hiked, dug for mussels, played on the beach and looked for bear tracks. Early Sunday morning Matt saw a porcupine on the deck and captured it on film so the rest of us could see the video later. On Monday morning we were blessed with a bear sighting. We watched from the deck of the cabin as he made his way across the beach and up into the woods. The rest of the day the boys made rafts out of reeds and floated them down a little stream. Maya was a little trooper as usual, going along with the adventure. Since she didn't understand what going across the bay to a cabin meant, I had told her we were going camping. So when we arrived at the cabin she took one look around and said "This isn't camping!" She had a super cute name for the cabin and now I can't remember what it was. That's what happens when you blog a month late.

" Timbers" is the name of the cabin.

Our first dinner at the cabin.

Making S'mores

Maya loves marshmallows.


Chris and Mom

The porcupine

Making rafts

Playing in the bear's sand box

Bear prints

And here it is!