This year we returned to the
Squam Art Workshops and my wife spent three days learning new sewing and knitting techniques from some amazing teachers and I spent those days with the kids poking around one of the most peaceful and beautiful camps around. Fortunately, nothing was as dramatic as last year's
ill-fated canoe trip across the lake, and we were able to just enjoy our days and take a few pictures. I've just now gotten around to looking at them.
We did climb Rattlesnake Mountain
again; my daughter insisted on this the first morning we woke up in camp. This year my 3-year-old son climbed all the way to the summit two separate times all by himself. Whining was curtailed by a long-winded story about a certain ancient hero named Gram the Runner who wanted to climb a giant mountain but no one believed he could do it all by himself.
My daughter was certain that Pegasus would fly up to meet her once she reached the top, and she'd even written him a letter, rolled in a strip of white birch bark and filled with treasures like fresh-water clamshells and small rocks pocked with mica. Slightly disappointed by his failure to appear, she left the gift in one of his "footprints" and then found herself filled with "the spirit of Pegasus." Flapping her wings all the way down the mountain, she terrified other hikers with high-pitched braying:
We love the routine of meals in the Rockywald cafeteria, and falling asleep to books in front of the fireplace at night.
Throwing Rocks from Docks was this year's favorite activity:
While hiking, my son decided to become a collector, filling his pockets with "beautiful things" he found in the forests.
His collection of beautiful things from the forest was most ordinary. He set each item out on the table and looked through them as though these forest treasures were magical, or somehow special. And of course they were.