Day #31

The rain returned to Fort Hope today. It returned just in time to destroy our plans to have a morning water day with the younger kids and an afternoon cookout with the older kids. But, as this summer has taught me time and time again; (In the words of Shad K) you just have to ‘vibe’ with it…

I suppose we should have known better. The whole week had been sunny and warm, up until today. We should have known that something was coming! The quick backstory is this. Included in our camp supplies we were given a number of pieces of outdoor sports equipment. One of these pieces of equipment is a slip ‘n’ slide water game. We also managed to track down some sponges and other water paraphenial and planned out a number of water games for the younger kids to participate in. The second piece of sports equipment is a volleyball/badminton set. We had planned to set that up for the first time today and give the older kids a chance to try it out while we grilled some hotdogs for an afternoon cookout. However, unfortunately mother nature had other plans for us today.

We woke up to a soft, peaceful and unrelenting rain, one that played tricks with us throughout the whole day before finally settling in until the evening. As we so often are required to do, we thought on our feet. We immediately made plans to do some baking and began our day. The morning passed brilliantly well with our young kids. We ran camp as a normal day and then took them down to bake around 11am. They did a fantastic job baking, except for the part where little Taya cracked the egg over her leg instead of over the bowl…I had to run home and get another egg, and well, Taya had to walk home with egg on her pants…We also had the kids draw a picture of someone that they love. I drew along with them, and added another beautiful pictures of my mom, dad and sister to my collection. I haven’t improved a lot since grade 1…My portfolio of artwork has grown considerably over my time with the 4-6 year olds, and it is slowly filling the space on my bare white walls.

The afternoon plan was rather thrown together as well…We decided to take a stab at showing the movie ‘Twilight’. It’s a always a gamble showing a movie to a group of kids. Sometimes it will hold their attention, and sometimes it is just a distraction that adds to the incecant white noise of a camp day. Today, the movie held the kids’ attention for about half an hour, which I suppose was alright. We kept them happy by giving them popcorn and a couple of other treats. We projected the movie onto a screen in the library, and all in all the afternoon went okay. The only hiccough was when some rowdy kids decided that they would ‘come to camp’ because of the popcorn…We had to bar the doors to keep them out haha. It was kind of entertaining actually, especially when we teamed up with our favourite Maintenance guy Bruce. Bruce came up to us and asked if we wanted him to ‘dismiss’ the ‘camp-crashers’. We told him to do his worst. So, out strolled Bruce, in his calm but firm manner…He exchanged a look with the kids, then suddenly burst through the door with a yell! The kids scattered! Then Bruce turned calmly towards us and grunted happily, before allowing the corners of his mouth to turn up in a half smile. That’s about as much outward emotion as you’re going to get from Bruce, but as I’ve gotten to know him, I’ve realized he is one of the most honest, solid and thoughtful men I have ever met.

My evening consisted of dinner, a long run and now a movie called Things we Lost in the Fire. It’s worth a watch…

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for this evening. I’m looking forward to a nice extended sleep…