Five Brown Kids

Summer swim team is over.  The meets are done.  Trophies are handed out.  It's a little bittersweet...so much fun but those swim meets were so exhausting. Taye missed the last meet because he was in NS but the kid who swims with him had a banner night pulling in all first places. He probably wishes Taye would go to NS for the whole summer!  Jaxon did great.  Scotia walked to the block on her own accord, jumped in at the whistle and swam all the way to the 15y rope by herself.  You've come a long way baby! Photos by Foster Bradley Photography

The next adventure at Grandpa Camp was some wilderness camping. This is one of my dad's favorite spots and he makes it out there every summer - grandpa camp or not.  It's a 1930's hunting cabin only accessible by canoe.  There is a well to draw water with a bucket, there is an outhouse and there are lots of bugs. (Taye did not like!)  They played UNO by the light of an oil lamp. A neighbour kid came with on some of the adventures so Taye would have a friend.  They hauled the canoe up the stream between the two lakes by themselves. Taye walks on water: There is a great picture of the camp here on my parents blog .

Taye also spent some time in my dad's shop learning how to use the tools. And searching through my dad's stash of treasures. I hear he's bringing home a few choice items.

This was Taye's biggest plan for Grandpa Camp.  Learn how to shoot.  When he arrived there were tin cans hanging from the trees in the backyard just waiting to get pulverized.  I heard they had to make a trip to the hardware store to buy a second package of pellets when the first one ran out.   Here's an old picture of my parents back yard for reference. This is the retirement home - not the one I grew up in.

Still going!

Like most 10 year old boys Taye has been obsessed with owning and using a pellet gun.  My dad would be the best person to teach him guns skills (he was on the US Biathlon team in the late 60's) so we planned to wait for his next visit and then buy a little red rider. After Taye got pretty good at starting fires in the fire pit he wanted to learn how to start fires without matches. (oh, heavens!) I tried to help him with no success and I thought about how much Taye would enjoy a trip to NS and hanging out with my adventurous dad.  I checked out some flight prices (and then changed my mind). And then one day Taye told me that we really needed to do some wilderness camping to see how well we could survive in the woods! That was it. I wasn't going to miss this chance when Taye was still so interested and eager.   I decided to make it happen, and I did. We worked out an agreement with Taye that he would pay the airlines "unaccompanied minor fee" and we would cover...

The golf course was closed for a month while they replaced some grass on the greens so we got to explore a little bit. Discovered this awesome tree swing just off in the woods. The blackberry patch is just off the course enough that we can raid it whenever we want - golf closure or not.