My oldest was at Boy Scout Camp for the last week. So I took the twins off the beach, just west of Richmond, Virginia to go camping. It was your basic pull your car in and set up your tent, type affair, but the kids loved it.
My boy is a bit of a pyro when it comes to campfires, but he harnesses it nicely. He did most of the fire tending and assisted in the cooking, while my daughter and I gathered fire wood, and took Gordon out to claim more trees as his own.
We spent some good time canoeing on the water. We fished and talked. We pulled the boat up and hiked for a bit. Again, we didn't catch many fish, but had a good time anyway.
I finally got to try out my new hammock, but the kids wouldn't let me sleep in it. They wanted me in the tent with them. They thought they had heard coyotes howling earlier.
The kids caught fireflies, then smeared the guts on each other's shirts to make them glow. They laughed until the sun had fled the sky and the bats swirled about our heads.
Of course we had marshmellows, and watched the fire burn down.
I picked up a copy of "Last Child in the Woods; Saving our children from nature-deficit disorder". It looks to be a good read. The back of the book reads:
"This is the first book to bring together a body of research indicating that direct exposure to nature is essential for healthy childhood development and for the physical and emotional health of children and adults."
It reads a lot like a text book, but there seems to be some interesting stuff in there.
It was a good weekend.
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