With the promise of a sunny weekend, I decided that a camping trip would be fun. Bobby had planted the idea of it, and since the boys had no school on Friday because of conferences, we could go in the early afternoon.
We planned to camp at Deception Pass like we did in October, but the people at the gate laughed when I asked if there was as spot – totally booked up!
Luckily there were a few spots further south at Fort Ebey, which ended up to be a beautiful place!
It was foggy when I took pictures, but when the fog cleared, you could see all of the islands and the sound.
We saw a river otter, a snake, all kinds of birds and creepy-crawlies, and this little guy who found peanut butter so irresistible, that when I tried to scare him from the table, he just took the knife with him…
On Saturday we found a sunny quiet spot. We used my handy emergency blanket as a picnic blanket – perfect! I read for hours and the boys played in the woods finding new creatures and an abandoned camp chair which Owen lovingly cleaned off and cherished like a bird with a broken wing. 
Later, Uncle Bobby let Owen and Jack each help with the fire. Their excitement over using matches is unparalleled with any boyhood adventure thus far. Each used up an entire box of matches after the fire was already going strong. Owen also used the axe and declared himself “much stronger than you, Mama!”
Jack was on a reading and math frenzy. He stopped to read every sign and when one sign read “Campsites 33-50” he read “33-60” and laughed saying that his “brain made him say 60 because 3 and 3 is 6.” I love that he plays with numbers like Owen does. Afterwards he wanted me to quiz him on numbers. I did for awhile and was impressed when he figured that we will have walked 8 miles at the end of the day since we walked to the beach and back twice and it was two miles each way. When I told him that the walk was actually a mile and a quarter, he was quiet for a bit, and then said, “Oh, then we walked five miles.”
By the end of three days, we were all filthy and happy and full of hot chocolate, hot-dogs and sunshine. Owen took home his newfound chair and lots of dirt in his toes (which he insisted be included in my blog along with a photo – sorry)
Jack brought home his new Easter ball, about 87 splinters in his hands from falling directly on a dried-up dead “pricker” bush, a tick, and a spider in his bag. I would have preferred he stuck with the ball, but what’s a mom to do?
(If you must know, she slowly removes splinters with magnifying glasses and pins and Power Ranger videos for a distraction – over a three day period; uses tweezers on the tick and obsesses about Lyme disease for several days; and removes all of the clothing from the bag with the vacuum one at at time terrified that the spider will suddenly attack – um, yes it was alive and a darned fast runner, and is now no longer with us.)
