Camp In

What do you do with a day like this?

This is the stream behind our house, which overflowed it's banks mid-day today and has totally flooded the trail we love to walk/run/bike on. Crazy!

Now, let me add a little more detail to the question I posed. What do you do with a day like this. . .on the fifth consecutive day that your co-pilot on the hair-raising ride of parenthood has been out of town? Staring down the barrel of a day full of "I'm bored" and "Can you buy me ____?" and "Can I watch _____?", I did a little braingoogling and came up with the idea for a Camp In with the kiddos. We've camped in the living room before, but this time we made a full day of it.

Camp Huffman

Campsite, with tent door strategically turned toward TV for afternoon viewing of "Up"




Camp food, which anyone who knows me will be shocked to see! I've been known to be just a wee bit of a food nazi, so it was definitely outside my comfort zone to plan a list and buy junky cereals, miniature turkey dogs, and ingredients for a s'more cookie pie as the basis of the kids' diet for the day. Best part of being vegan--no temptation on my part to partake of any of the goods. The kids were in enriched sugar heaven all day.


Trail mix fixins (more like Sugar Rush mix!)At least I got some almonds in there, right?
Individual pans of Campfire Mac 'n Cheese, weenie kabobs, and corn bread muffins
S'more cookie bars. Ok, so there was ONE moment of temptation to partake in the junk--these piles of gooey goodness smelled so good! I didn't cave though.

Camp Arts 'n Crafts. Cornstarch, baking soda, and some unbent wire hangers made fancy personalized marshmallow roasting sticks for summer camp-outs. They are drying and will be painted tomorrow. Keller's is a log (see the wood grain he added!); Marley's looks like 4 marshmallows; and Casey's is going to be either a rockstar handle or Pokemon, he couldn't decide so we went with nothing for the time being!


In Other News . . .

The boys and I are almost finished with a 10-week Tae Kwon Do class. I really like the class. It's a decent workout and it's good for working on focusing. I think the structure and discipline are good for the boys. Casey likes it, but I can't convince him to sign up for another session. Keller, well, Keller just wants to get back to rock climbing, which is fine. So I guess my days of chopping, punching, and kicking are numbered. Yesterday was sparring practice and Keller took a friend to class.