These tents are the ones Dave and I each used on our various motorcycle camping trips, before we started sharing one.
Ah, the memories opening up my tent again! I'd forgotten how free and secure I felt riding around with all my camping gear strapped to my bike. I used my tent a lot, sometimes joining the BMW motorcycle club every month for a distant campout. The scent, the feeling of the poles in my hands, brings me right back to a former life. So often I set up in the dark after hundreds of miles of riding, and almost always packed up very early the next morning, with freezing cold fingers and wet gear. What was with me, why did I have to leave Quincy at 6:30am in 35 degrees on Memorial Day? To miss traffic? To beat 90+ degree heat crossing the Central Valley? To ensure a solo ride, something I treasured? To get home by noon and just relax the rest of the day? Or just to do it?
But some reality unfolded in my backyard as the tents did: am I insane thinking it will be fun having Katrina along on the camping trip?? There could be nice moments, but she has a talent for bringing me crashing down hard at any time, and demanding all my attention when I'm up to my eyeballs in logistics. (Paradoxically, she will also play by herself for a very, very long time for a not-even-2-year-old -- she just won't tell me when.) I think I'm going to leave her behind with Dave, with a blank check to Melissa for any relief he needs from our adorable little tyrant, and a big deficit in marital brownie points.
Dave does have fun with her one-on-one though. She "helps" on his weekly run to Safeway by carrying the grocery bags to be recycled. Incredibly, she took a liking to this "new" hand-me-down hat, and actually wears it. So cute!
Meantime, the boys got ready for a wishbone-snapping. Even with my blase boys, there's still a risk of someone being miffed for losing this utterly random exercise, so I prepared them carefully. They each made a wish, and then snap!
Now I have to break it to Julian that just because he won the snap-off, doesn't mean he'll really get a new Lego set.
Last week, Gabriel's CDC took them to a pizza place for lunch. Sounds simple, right? But it was more than that, as usual: the cooks showed them how to make pizzas, and they got to do many of the steps. Gabriel had a great time with that, so I thought it'd be fun to make a pizza with him, and got the major ingredients at Trader Joe's last week. Dough, sauce, cheese, done.
He was excited to make a pizza, and I "deferred" to his superior knowledge of pizza-making. I had to laugh when I'd ask him questions, and he'd start the answer with such authority: "Well, usually I just ...." Usually?? He's done this once!
First we rolled out the dough.
Spread the sauce.
Sprinkle the cheese.
Notice a critical tactical error? Duh, move the dough to the baking sheet before putting sauce on it!
Not only was this fun, but the pizza was pretty good, and the boys loved it.
My back was very unhappy about all the bending up and down setting tents up, but it's even more unhappy sitting here typing. No problem for the pizza party though.
8/17/08
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