Summer kicked off with our annual family camping trip–Josef’s tenth in a row! He also went off to Camp Westwind for a 5 night sleepaway with 4 of his buddies. Then we shipped him off to Utah for 10 days where he got to play with cousins. Meanwhile Rachael–freshly completing her 2nd chemo–and I got to spend 4 excellent days playing with our best friends on the Sandy river, followed up by a couple days at the Oregon Country Fair. When Josef returned I took him rafting, backpacking, and took plenty of other camping trips. I think we ended up spending 22 nights out under the stars this summer. We also spent a few days in Eastern Oregon for Auntie Nin’s wedding.
A highlight of the summer was taking kayaks with one of Josef’s buds across Carter Lake to explore a marshy area, and then paddling up a little channel as deep into the woods as we could go. We then disembarked and kept going on foot until we found the ultimate slime zone. We then engaged in a brutal muck-ball combat, wadding up sea grasses with sand and slime to create big gooey projectiles. We were gone for hours and returned to camp spattered in slime.
Josef’s amusement is really starting to revolve around his friendships. I need to make sure there is a buddy to play with as often as possible. Mere dad does not cut it. Fortunately he has a fantastic group of pals, and I feel so fortunate that he has found such a gang of good eggs. Most of our camping trips with were with several families, and we have finally reached the stage where the kids all just run wild playing, screaming, having fun, and are pretty much self-contained. They are all such great little people.
Josef continues to mature in all the right ways–and also in the inevitable ways that bring a little bittersweetness too. He’s become much more aware of the culture around him, taking on little phrases, expressions, and affectations that I’ve not seen before. Everyone is his “bruh” now… It was only a matter of time. Friends of his have Nintendos so he has become obsessed with Mario and I’m forced to listen to a constant discourse on that topic. But he also spends a lot of time trying to draw characters, and has taught himself how to play a great many of the Mario themes on the piano, so the mind-numbing appeal of video games has not fully doused the creative spark. He is doing quite well with piano and it’s a joy to listen to him practice and plink around.
I moved my sailboat to Fern Ridge and got a good 4 or 5 afternoons in with my first mate, Grandpa Steve. Docking always ends up being a bit of an adventure–whether due to the wind, or engine failure, or any number of wild cards–but we always manage to pull it off. My sailing skills are slowing developing, and perhaps next year I will join the Eugene Yacht Club in order to make some new sailing friends and get some mentorship.
With all the camping, the wedding, and the various other fun things we did, this felt like the busiest summer I can remember. There just didn’t seem to be any downtime. Normally I like to have some quite weekends this just ended up being packed, and yet it turned out really fun. I would like to get more travel in, but damn if Oregon in the summer is just too wonderful to leave!
Some hits from the Summer Movie Series include: Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Labyrinth, & Spirited Away. We also ended up watching quite a few episodes of the 60’s Batman TV series which we both LOVED. It really hit the sweet spot of absurdity yet earnestness. I’m so glad we can enjoy these older things together a little bit before he get sucked into the Marvel universe and there’s no looking back!
Here are some videos from our summer activities.
