Here are the June highlights:
- Summer pool party
- Luke and I attend the Adventure Guides’ summer camp where Luke is awarded his Beaver Badge
- Luke starts YMCA baseball
- Lilah turns 10
Lilah
June has been camp month. In the span of a few weeks, Lilah has participated in tennis/splash camp, cooking camp, and dance camp. Tennis camp always culminates in an end of week tennis “competition” amongst the kids — an event Lilah won last year, but came in second this year. Although Lilah was not convinced she was second because she won exactly the same amount of matches. Her take was that coach Mary did not want to award the same person first place again so rather than call it a tie, coach Mary gave the first place award to a boy. Lilah didn’t seem too displeased with the outcome though so all was well.
In cooking camp, the kids get to make all kinds of dishes. The first day was lasagna with garlic bread. She really loved the lasagna and made her opinion known, telling Cathy that the lasagna they made in camp was better than her recipe because it didn’t use any meat. As always, there were dishes she didn’t like (fish), but nothing could hold her back from the deserts (especially “dirt pudding”). The great part about the camp is that the kids get to learn a lot about cooking — such as what tools to use, what ingredients to mix, and how to plan — as well as eat the cuisine they create. Lilah said it wasn’t too much fun trying to cut a tomato with a plastic knife though ;-).
Dance camp was enjoyable for some of the same reasons. This year, Lilah looked forward to camp even more because her best friend Tory joined her. In addition they were the more “senior” members of the camp so in addition to working on their own group dance routines, they also served as as teachers to the younger members of the camp. At the end of the week, all the kids performed together in two routines and the older kids were given the additional challenge of dancing their way through a more complex dance. Here’s a short video of Lilah and Tory in their group (Lilah is in the top left hand corner of the frame).
The biggest news for Lilah this month was turning 10. Yes, she’s officially in the double-digits category now and I still can’t get over how fast time flies. Now she’s more than half way to college…sniff!
Luke
Luke also participated in a few camps this month, including one of his favorites, Lego camp, where he built a windmill, a gondola, a merry-go-round, a catapult, and belt and pulley car. I didn’t have time to visit his camp this year and take pictures, but here’s a picture of Luke and his catapult from two years ago.
This month we also went to the Adventure Guides’ summer camp. If you remember from my past experience, I haven’t always been too fond of going to these things due to a few dads who stay up really late hooting, hollering, singing and letting their kids run wild. Here’s a blog passage from last year’s camp that captures the vibe:
One thing that wasn’t too cool about the camping was our noisy neighbors. This camping stuff is all luck of the draw. Meaning the Adventure Guides reserve the spot, but not everyone in the Adventure Guides is a considerate neighbor. The guys and kids next to me were loud X 100. Lilah and Luke were ready to go to bed by 9:30, which I extended to just before 10:00, but that was already a stretch (they were beat). So there we are in the tent trying to get to sleep, but the kids next to us are screaming and cackling and talking really loudly as they continue playing one game after another. This went on until about 12:30 or almost 1:00 AM. And the dads were no help. In fact, I could hear them saying stuff like “If our wives only knew how late we let the kids stay up, they’d kill us.” And somewhere along the line, two of the guys began singing. They sang, The Gambler, by Kenny Rogers, and My Angel is a Centerfold, by the J Geils Band. What was funny was how proud they were of recollecting all the verses to these songs and the sense of contentment they seemed to get from it all. Luckily, the kids fell asleep before the singing began, but daddy was left there to endure the serenading from the drunken cowboys. I chuckled about it because that’s all you can really do, but I’m not sure if I want to camp that way again.
Fortunately, this year’s camp was a lot more subdued at night. At least, I didn’t hear any singing or rowdy kids crashing into our tent. Luke and I went on our own this time as Lilah chose to spend the night with “grandmy and grandpy” this year. Luke had a great time as he learned how to fish (or at least how to cast a line) from one of the other dads, played volleyball, and earned his Beaver badge. The kids earn badges by progressively taking on and completing new activities or challenges such as washing the car, helping to set up a tent, etc.. The goal is to keep them growing and learning new things together with their dads. Luke definitely seems committed to this Adventure Guides thing though as whenever I ask him if he’s ready to call it quits, he firmly tells me he is not because camp is so much fun.
Another activity Luke is having fun with is YMCA baseball. I always knew that baseball would be a good sport for Luke because it allows him to do things as part of a team without being smothered by the team if you know what I mean. For example, in soccer, basketball, and football you always have these other bodies that threaten to crash into you, get in your way or take the ball away from you. Luke is one of those kids who is okay at these other sports but he does shy away from the contact a little bit. That’s the beauty of baseball. At least at this level, you have an opportunity to focus on hitting the ball (one player at a time), and on defense you pretty much always have a zone that is yours to cover on your own. For Luke, its really been a confidence building sport and that’s nice to see.
The Parents
This month Cathy has been preparing herself to teach her first Spin class solo in July (officially, Cathy is teaching indoor cycle but it amounts to about the same thing — Spin is just the trademarked name for a specific indoor cycle program). To get herself ready, she has taught quite a few half sessions with her friend Alicea. Essentially, Alicea lets Cathy teach the first half of her class which has allowed her to get comfortable with the gear (stereo, microphone, fan, etc.), practice teaching in a friendly environment, and get a feel for how she needs to structure her routines and what type of instruction she needs to provide to the group. She also has to be a DJ of sorts as she needs to bring music for each class she teaches. This means she spends lots of hours looking for songs and burning CD compilations designed to keep students motivated and spinning away on their stationary bikes for 50+ minutes. I’ve greatly simplified all there is to do in this summary. Lets just say there are a lot of balls to juggle when teaching indoor cycle , but I think Cathy is as prepared as she can be and will absolutely rock when she teaches her first class solo. Go Cat!
I ran my second triathlon of the season and was pretty happy with the results. I have two more sprint distance triathlons in July and August and then I cap it off with the big finale in September, which will be an Olympic distance race. That means 1500 meters of swimming (close to a mile), 25 miles of biking and 6 miles of running. That’s pretty much double the distance of a sprint distance race on the bike and run, and almost 4 times the distance on the swim. I haven’t done this distance in more than 20 years so wish me luck.
That’s all for now. More next month!