Camp rain

So every year I take my older boys out camping. This year was the first for my 3rd son. Now there's a bit of an age gap between 2 and 3, so he's a few steps behind his brothers. This shows in their interactions, how they play, etc. I was ready to mitigate the differences to make it a smoother trip for everyone...

But I didn't need to. The differences that cause conflict were still present, but they worked with each other and set them aside. I suppose driving rain on our arrival and a scary night can do that.

You know how raindrops sound very irregular when they're falling through tree leaves? Imagine that on the metal roof of our cabin (so glad I got the cabin this year). To my sons, it was weird and scary. I knew exactly what it was and I kinda liked it, but they were put off by it.

I need to foster more situations like this. Shared misery is apparently a good thing.

Supplies suprise

Well in advance, I started looking through our camp supplies. They weren't all in the same place, and I discovered a few redundancies. Turns out I'm more of a hoarder than it seems.

We make our own firestarters. We use paper egg cartons as a base, fill them with dryer lint, and pour melted wax over it. They work amazingly well. Someone I know was offering a giant block of wax (free, just take it), and my dad had a large stack of the paper egg cartons. I've been collecting dryer lint for 3 years. I have enough raw material to make so many firestarters my kids will be telling stories about it for their entire lives. My grandchildren will be using these.

If I make them.

Camp

Every July I take my boys camping. This is going to be the first year for my third son (he's finally old enough to keep up)

This is not the time for me to be constantly tired.

Green balled?

My sunflowers are 8 feet tall, but are just big green stumps. No flowers yet. My kids are amazed at the size of these giant green stalks, whose leaves are blocking my front windows.

But no flowers yet. -_-

The new car

So I bought a car that was a color they called "silver metallic topaz", which actually looks like a shiny sky blue. It's almost the exact same color as my wife's first car, the one she had when we got together. She took that car on more adventures than I knew about. In its old age, it gave out on us and she was very unhappy to see it go.

So when I first saw this new car, I immediately knew my wife would love it just based on the color alone. Turns out I was right. I think she wants to take it from me.