One of the fun things about being married to a famous Node programmer is that he gets free tickets to local programming conferences (if they have anything to do with Node, which is a rather small niche...). This conference was out in the WOODS, the great California outback. It was so far removed from civilization that there was no cell phone signal with any carrier (I had fun imagining myself as one of the advertised 3% not covered by AT&T).... but there was wireless internet, courtesy of a router duct-taped to a tree. It was called CouchCamp, thrown by CouchOne, which is the company built off the success of a database software called CouchDB. I don't know why everything is couches... but Tim likes them, and they like Tim. They just don't need his skills at the moment, so he can't work for them. (Shame, too, b/c they're one of the few awesome companies in Oakland, which is MUCH cheaper to live in, and much closer to the temple!)
So, we were only home from Utah for a couple of days before we left for this 3-day camp. Thankfully the camp was in lodges, not tents, so we had room to put all our stuff, beds to sleep in, and bathrooms indoors. It was also catered by the Ranch kitchen, which cooked us superb food that they said was about 80% local (and of course most of the local stuff was either organic or close to it). So, in a lot of ways it wasn't really camping, but it was out in the boonies and there were lots of animals around to gawk at. We saw tons of deer, and birds and squirrels and rabbits, and Tim saw raccoons and foxes. And we got to hike and trek in the woods and on the not-wooded hills. It was so so so much fun for me, the biologist, to go hiking with my kids and have Jack point out the trees and rock formations and be curious about whether they were all one big bush or lots of different bushes and trees together, and want to pick our way through spiky, thorny grasses to go investigate.
See this? It looks like a gigantic bush!
But this is what it looked like when we got closer:
It was so much fun for me as a mom and homeschooler to see Jack get tuckered out with all the hiking, but then see something interesting and forget that he was tired and want to go investigate, even if it's farther uphill or on the other side of spiky thorny plants. And of course Lily loved every second of it, too!
There was also a creek (Walker Creek!) to play in. It was so nice and shallow; rocky, but with sandy parts too. And cold! But not too cold for Jack and Lily :D There was a little bridge that was just a few 2x6s laid across some rocks, and Jack thought that was so neat and wanted to cross it. I asked him to just take his shoes off first in case he fell in, and he did, but he didn't even come close to falling in. He's got pretty good balance :D That reminded me so much of my own childhood, when my mom used to take me to Logoly State Park just outside of my hometown, and let me play in the creeks there. I used to love it when I could find a tree fallen across a creek, and I would cross the creek on the log and feel so proud of myself for balancing. My mom was always worried I'd fall in, so one day she asked me "What are you going to do if you fall down?" I thought and couldn't come up with any answer, so she gave me a good one: "Get right back up again." And she asked me that same question every time I was about to cross a log, for years! So it was really fun for me, to see Jack getting ready to go across on this little footbridge, and ask him "What are you going to do if you fall down?" and he did the exact same thing I did, searched for an answer, and I did the exact same thing my mom did, give him the right one after just a few seconds: "Get right back up again." And he smiled, and I asked him again so he would give me the answer this time, and he did, with a big smile, and I had to blink to hold back the tears of pride in my big grown up boy. I had to do a lot of that, blinking, watching him run back and forth across that bridge, and wade in the water, not minding the rocks in the bottom, and shriek and yell and splash and watch his rope floating in the current.
There is very little in Jack's life that offers as much fun as a stick tied to a rope...
And my sweet baby girl! She rode happily on my hip when we first got to the creek, but when she saw Jack getting in she was not happy. I put her down but she didn't want down, so I held her but she still wasn't happy. Then she kicked down again, and started heading for the creek like she wanted in, so I took off her shoes and let her go in, but she wasn't quite comfortable getting in it yet. So I held her hands and walked her across the bridge, and she got more and more confident, and then she waded a teeny bit and let her feet get wet. Then she went across the bridge one more time but wanted to reach down and splash the water. I leaned in and held her torso so she could have her hands free, and lowered her down so she could reach the water, and she went to town! *splash splash splash* went the Lily hands, and *shriek squeal giggle* went the Lily mouth. The front of her overalls were SOAKED by the time she was done. And then she happily plopped on her bottom and played in the sand on the "beach" while Jack continued his playing.
Isn't she so darling in her rolled-up overalls?
I didn't actually get any pictures of her in the creek, b/c I was so busy making sure she didn't drown :D But we got a picture of her in a different spot in the creek the next day:
The camp was really only a day and a half, as far as I was concerned. We got there Wednesday evening, just in time for supper, then had all day Thursday to play, then just Friday morning. Tim got done with his scheduled activities at lunchtime, then he took some time to play in the creek with us before we loaded up and headed out. THAT was fun, getting to share my kids and creek fun with Tim :D He clambered around on the steep slope down to the creek, and explored, and provided an extra set of arms and eyes to keep the kids safe :)
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