The boys were persistent, though not whiny, in their requests for another camping trip. The first weekend of August the weather conditions looked favorable, so we loaded up and headed to Backbone State Park, about two hours away. Actually, it should have been closer to an hour and 40 minutes, but inevitably, construction slowed us down. We picked this park because I'd heard great things from friends about its beauty, especially the namesake hiking trail. Also, it had a "tent-only" campground that didn't require reservations or a two-night minimum. We thought we'd found a nice site, though later in the evening we would learn that our neighbors were not too concerned with the 10 p.m.-6 a.m. quiet hours rule.
We set up the tent and then split up to collect (boys and me) and buy (John) firewood. On our hike from the campsite in search of firewood, the boys and I spotted two deer eating dinner beside a creek. Their nature camp training allowed them to spot the scene, silently point it out and then stand still to observe without scaring the deer away. Priceless!
We gathered plenty of kindling to go with John's fire logs and soon had a fire burning for our hot-dog dinner. I'd looked up "camping recipes" before we left, but decided I'm just not that ambitious.
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| Burning sticks |
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| S'mores for dessert, of course! |
But back to Iowa--we had muffins (store bought in advance) and cereal for breakfast, loaded a backpack with water and granola bars and set out to find the Backbone trail. The park map left a lot to be desired, but we eventually got there and were not disappointed. The boys each packed his own pouch with "essentials" for the hike--a whistle/compass combo, flashlight, band-aids, granola bar. I carried all the water in the backpack.
We were tired when we got back after about two and a half hours (recall the lack of sleep) and not excited about PB&J for lunch, so we decided to go into the nearby town of Strawberry Point. (Unbeknown to us, the very next week, this town would be the foil in a Jon Stewart bit on The Daily Show.) Thus re-energized, we headed to the Backbone lake to fulfill another of the boys' long-standing wishes--paddle boats. Unsurprisingly to the parents, the boys were much more interested in using their feet to dangle in the water than to pedal the boats, but it worked out to everyone's satisfaction. And from there we headed home to our showers, our toilets and our beds!
Another fun summer day was a combo Kernels game and Planet X game night. Planet X is sort of a smaller version of a Chuck-E-Cheese, with pizza, video games, rock climbing, bumper cars, laser tag, and on this special occasion, face painting. The occasion was a fundraiser for the Summer of the Arts organization, for which John is a board member. This group puts on a series of summer festivals in Iowa City.
The boys always ask for face painting at these festivals, but the lines are always ridiculous and it seems like a lot of $ for something you'll just wash off in a few hours anyway. But this time it worked well. Edward requested these eyes on his eyelids--creepy! Daniel got a batman mask, but I can't seem to find a picture--will have to check John's phone.
This event was on a Sunday evening and the Cedar Rapids Kernels had an afternoon home game that day, so it seemed like a good combo. The boys had participated in the Kernels Summer Reading Challenge, reading 1,000 minutes to earn a whole spate of prizes. (These could be claimed in 250 minute intervals as you "arrived" at each base on the activity sheet, but we saved it all for one trip.) They got a free game ticket as well as a wristband for unlimited access to the Fun Zone. They would have been very happy to stay in this area the whole time. In fact, I'm not sure they were even fully aware there was a baseball game going on!
After the game, kids were invited onto the field to run the bases, play catch, and get player autographs. Ours were primarily interested in the base-running.
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| Daniel rounding second; Edward on his way from first |
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| Coming home |
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| Running in a crowd toward home |
Other summer fun included:
Grandpa's birthday
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| Note the Lego cakes and number 71 |
Johnson County Fair (OMG it was so hot! And it rained while we were there which did nothing to cool but really ramped up the humidity.)
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| "Pirate ship" |
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| This was before the full body immersion |
I don't know what this was, but it kept the boys occupied and giggling for a while one afternoon.
Reading!
Not all of it upside down on the stairs, but hey, we take what we can get. As noted above, the boys completed 1,000 minutes of reading for the Kernels Summer Reading Challenge. This also doubled as minutes toward the public library summer reading program. They finished the library program with five weeks left of vacation so we created a bonus Kenyon Summer Reading challenge seeking 500 minutes with the prize of The Lego Movie DVD. We did not take into account that the final two weeks of summer included all-day, exhausting, outdoor camps, so we still have about 100 minutes to go, but we'll make it by Labor Day, which is the true end of summer, right?
