Campers R Us

The family has been doing some camping of recent times. We started in June and have been going full force. We camped twice at the beach and once at a lake. Scott, Grant and I went to a local beach to camp. We had fun doing the "basics." For us these include kite-flying, swimming (both ocean and pool), grilling, building sand castles, getting some sun and tooling around on our bikes to the pier. It was just the three of us and the beach. Oh, Grant is the biggest supporter of playing "all the games," too. So, it is not unusual for us to do four or five puzzles and play four or fives games (you know, Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, Elefun, Hi Ho Cherry-Os, Memory, etc.) I do love to play games, even if I do get a little tired at the end of the day. LOL

Next, we met some friends at a beach area in San Diego for nearly a week. Our friend has two boys and one always brings his best friend. So, Grant had plenty of playmates. However, the boys are quite a bit older so G couldn't always hang. He is just a little too little right now. The most amazing thing happened on this trip...he learned to not use his floatation devices in the pool and go under. He would go under water and then swim toward us without the use of any help...well, except for us reaching to him. Oh, don't think he can swim by himself...just with less help. Baby steps to swimming. Also, Grant learned to ride his bike. Chris and Jennifer gave him a Spiderman bike when he was baptized but Grant was not able to do the footwork until this trip. Our friend, Jerms, taught Grant how to ride and get the bike going. The biggest problem for him was learning how to get it going. Jerms taught him to "put his booty" into it. LOL Also, one funny thing is that we got him going and forgot to teach him how to stop. OOPS! So, after flying over the curb onto the beachy sand, he learned that he needs to learn how to stop. We were able to listen to several live bands at this camping facility and Scott & Jerms even blessed everyone by doing some Karoke. Fun times! In the evening, you could go down to the beach and watch the Sea World fireworks too...this place is so great! We also learned that if you stay on Mallard Lane, well you will be blessed with a bunch of ducks (DAILY). We were there for five or six days, therefore we were getting ready to name our ducks. They did seem to really like us (or was it our bread?). Oh yeah, and we went into town and saw the USS Midway! And guess who was playing there that night on the Midway? The Oakridge Boys!

Okay, our most recent camping excursion was to a local lake. It was fun to be at a lake and fishing. We had been use to the beach life, but we decided to go close...real close. We were able to still go swimming in a pool, enjoy the biking life, and play all the new camping games Grant got for his birthday. We played horseshoes, golfing croquet set, kite flying, big bubble wand, giant kick ball, and the list goes on. Thank goodness Jerm's two boys were there to help play all of these. Thanks to Camden and Mason!! Grandpa Gary took Grant fishing (with his Spongebob reel). Oh, what fun. The only thing that was a downfall was that Scott had his Tr*k bike stolen. We had really gotten use to camping and feeling so safe with people around. Turns out, you should lock up your bikes everytime. Scott mentioned having paid $600 for this bike back in 1991. :( Needless to say, we have not yet replaced this item. I am proud to say that Scott did not let it put a damper on his fun and went right on to go fishing.