First Annual Summer Camp

We are back in our slow season and this year we knew we had to come up with something to help survive the summer, both financially and mentally. 

I think we may have found a partial solution at least. For the first two months of summer we offered the kids around here the option to join us for our First Annual Summer Camp. 

The goal here was to offer childcare for kids during the day for the parents, and to offer the kids a fun way to spend their summer. 

Don't worry, the life jackets went on just after this shot at the dock. 

We had some kids that were just visiting the island attend, some that live here year around, and some that just live here for a few months out of the year. Good mix of kiddos. 

Most of these photos were just from the first two days of camp. We had different sets of kids that came at different times, and I'll get more pics up soon to show those. 

Mason, one of the three boys next door. 

The hermit crab search on Stocking Island was a huge hit with all these BOYS :) 

Brayden with a cup full of crabs. 

They were searching high and low for crabs and critters. 

It was quite the excitement when they found a 'big' land crab. 

I still get cracked up at how high pitched a bunch of boys can scream :) 

Caleb, Avery & Teddy

Caleb, below, was their brave and fearless leader in the crab hunt. He lives her year around and actually just next door to us. He is quite the explorer! 

Caleb

Hagen, Caleb's youngest brother, also lives next door. 

Hagen

The boys loved doing a hermit crab race with a track and all. It was a lot of fun just seeing all the personalities coming to life. 

The hit of this day was definitely the inner-tubing. 

Teddy & Brayden

They all learned the 'thumbs up' and 'thumbs down' signals for the boat to go faster or slower. The whole ride with these two their thumbs were pointing up :) Sorry, we'll let your moms and dads really zip you around in that thing if you want to go super fast, we had to return you in one piece with no major owees! They did have one really fun wipe out, and the second we could hear them after it they were laughing hysterically :) 

Teddy & Brayden

The little fellas preferred to keep it a little slower. 

Joss (our oldest) & Avery 

I think there were a few times we had a thumbs up from one and thumbs down from the other... but we never came close to these guys flying out. 

Joss & Avery 

Captain Dallas and his 1st Mate, Emit, our youngest. Emit didn't want to do anything but catch a little power nap during the tubing. 

We stopped tubing for a few minutes to explore some starfish. 

These little guys are pretty great in the water. 

I tried to get a few shots of them underwater too. 

Teddy

I also tried to teach them the 'starfish call' :) Basically you float on top of the water face down with your arms and legs spread way out wide like a starfish. Avery is doing a pretty good starfish call below. 

Brayden & Avery 

This was one of the best days of camp, it was also the first full day of camp, but everything just went really smooth this day. We were still new to everyone, so they were on their Best Behavior this day which meant we got to have lots of fun!

Teddy diving up a starfish

The older few really did great diving up these starfish in water about 10-12 feet deep. 

Brayden diving up his starfish

The next day of camp we only had one kid joining us, so we paddled over to the beach that some of that Brayden & Avery were staying at during their visit to the island. 

Teddy, Cute Little Joss & Dallas 

It was a great little paddle from our beach. Dallas was in a double kayak with Joss & Teddy, while Emit and I took a single together. 

My cute little passenger, Emit!

The fun thing about living here is that it is always exciting (at least for my boys) to just play on a different beach. And lucky for us, we have lots of beaches to choose from. We definitely have our favorites, but just changing the scenery can go a long ways with these little guys, thank goodness :) It's not like we have a lot to choose from for entertainment outside of the water!

Trying to capture all the excitement with both cameras of finding an octopus! 

I was soooo excited to see this thing :) Dallas and Teddy were snorkeling and found one of those famous 'Red Solo Cups' in the sand and tucked down inside was this cool little fella. 

We watched him for a bit, let the kids all see him, and then we set him free. We didn't want to take any chance of an 'accidental slaughter'. That was the theme when we found anything this summer, "Show it off and take it away quickly" before an arm gets ripped off or stick gets poked or a rock gets tossed. I'm sure it is just a boy thing, but we wanted to make sure nothing got hurt on our watch. 

Setting the octopus free...

Another great day in the books for our little summer camp!

Teddy, Joss & Dallas, ready for the return paddle

More fun to come...