Camp Papanan: Castles and Knights

So, we decided to make a cardboard castle earlier in the week.

My mom and I got a wee bit carried away.

The boys have gotten a ton of fun from the making of and playing with the castle, but I'm pretty sure that this Camp Papanan activity was more about us than them. (I regretfully admit that Dad found the two of us working on it with the boys nowhere in sight...ahem.)

Mom and I had many more ideas, add-ons, and mechanisms in mind, but we decided that we had better stop lest Dad stage a formal intervention and reclaim his office. We also ran out of packing tape.

Among the amenities: it has a working mailbox, a lock on the door, a holder for swords, a gargoyle, a ghost, front and back entrances, a moat, two flags, decorations, and a working portcullis with guard alligator that can be released to attack intruders. The ancient Besant family coat of arms (it's actually legitimate! from my mom's family name in England) hangs above the front door. 

The mailbox has certainly gotten the most use. William, who's obsessed with mailboxes this summer and checks the real one outdoors many times each day, has filled it and checked it hundreds of times already. Here he was about to post his jammies and swim trunks, naturally.

The boys also helped make themselves cardboard armor, shields, and swords. 

 Mom already had the hobby horses on hand. Every knight needs a noble steed!

 Lots of battles have ensued. 

 My fearsome warriors!

Cousin Micah (age 4) was with us on Wednesday and loved the castle too. Hilariously, he immediately declared that Papa was the castle ogre, and upon this pronouncement, all three boys took mere seconds to attack him in his chair. :)  Dad quickly played the part!

This and that

Can't wait to have you finally join us tonight, Jesse. 

Two weeks is a long time — you'll hardly recognize the boys! 

And, to round out this virtual chronicle of our time away, here are a few as-yet-unmentioned highlights of the past fortnight.

Celebrating Nannan's birthday last Sunday. We made the dinosaur cake more for the kids than her. Obviously.  :)  In fact, we had several families here after church for a barbecue, so three 1-year-olds, a 3-year-old, a 4-year-old, a 6-year-old, an 8-year-old, and a 9-year-old all were happy little cake eaters. 

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 Last week we spent part of a day at Auntie Kara's house. Carter and Micah were great! Great-Grandma was there too, and we all had fun.

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 Roasting marshmallows is always a perfect way to end the day. Most nights have either been way too hot or way too wet, but we've managed it once and are looking forward to more when you're with us!

Camp Papanan: Woodworking

Dad is such a skilled and talented woodworker. Need beautiful cabinets or furniture built? Trim work milled from scratch and installed? A house framed from the foundation up? We're so fortunate to be surrounded by his handiwork! The boys enjoyed an introduction to woodturning with him the other day. He turned spinning tops for them, and the boys got to add color to them on the lathe. The tops are heavy, beautiful, and on a decent spin will go for over 60 seconds. Josiah and William were thrilled with them—and with being involved in the making!

Starting to turn the basic shape.

Coming along...

Josiah seeing how to gently apply the marker tip as the lathe whirls.

 Josiah adding colors on his own.

 William's lesson (on a different lathe).

William applying the color, using a tool rest to keep it steady.

(I didn't take a pic of both boys with their tops at the end. If I think of it at an opportune time, I'll get a photo and update this.)

Beatin' the heat

Our first 10 days here sure were so, so hot and humid! My folks sweetly sprung for a window air conditioning unit for the boys' attic bedroom last week so we were all sleeping pretty well at night (well, A/C doesn't help middle-of-the-night bathroom needs, nightmares, and other general awakenings, so take "sleeping well" with a grain of salt...). Anyway, during daytime hours, we sought alternative ways of staying comfy. These heat-beatin' suggestions are brought to you by William:

Offer to water the flowers. Then go bananas with the hose to get good and wet!

Go really fast on the boat to enjoy a good breeze in your hair.

Hold a cold fish.

Play in kiddie pool.

And if all else fails, just take it all off! (We found him like this outdoors after he'd been playing alone for a bit. His swimsuit and crocs were off in the yard.)

More racing fun

Last Saturday, Nannan and I took the boys into the NH Motor Speedway to meet up with Papa and see a race (first time for William, but Josiah's second since of course he and I had been in on Thursday). It was LOUD—unbelievably loud, as in, you couldn't be heard even when screaming an inch from someone's ear. It was a 200 lap race and not much interesting happened...just cars going around and around in circles for a few hours...with such noise that you couldn't possibly visit or chat...sitting in aluminum bleachers in the hot sun...so I can't say that any of us was particularly converted to racing passion! But it was certainly a fun new experience. Around lap 50, Dad/Papa had a break from his work down in the First Aid area and came to collect William. For the next hour Mr. Cutebox apparently lived large, shuttling all around in the golf cart, receiving cookies and treats from everyone who saw him, driving into the infield (with the race going on around!), and even getting an unsolicited invitation to sit in someone's legacy car. Unbelievable.

These next two pictures Dad took during his little excursion with William. What a treat!

Although the official racing weekend ended on Sunday, here at the house the racing fun continued into Monday. That day we watched the movie Cars (blu ray with booming surround sound, no less), read a Berenstain Bears racing book, and then Papa produced a totally awesome racing track for the boys to play with! They were thrilled and have enjoyed many hours this week of racing, crashing, and generally having fun.

Camp Papanan: Skeleton Day

Mom sometimes refers to their home up here as "Camp Papanan" in the summer. With the fishing, hiking, boating, berry picking, gardening, woodworking, baking, marshmallow roasting, crafting, and general fun to be had, it certainly does feel like camp! This morning Nannan announced that it was skeleton day at Camp Papanan. Among other things, we learned about bones, enjoyed a book about animal skeletons, told the Old Testament story of Ezekiel and the valley of dry bones, and sang "Dem Bones" a few times for good measure.

The highlight of the day for Josiah was making a life size skeleton of himself out of white poster board. I should add that William, who managed to be wide awake between 12:30 and 4:00 a.m. overnight, was an utter disaster today. He spent most of his time destroying things, being violent, and generally getting into significant amounts trouble. Sadly, he didn't make his own skeleton because he only wanted to rip up the poster board, throw hard objects (e.g., scissors, large toys) at people's heads, or "wreck things" (his words). As you might imagine, I spent the vast majority of the day being Camp Papanan's enforcer-slash-cuddler, staying one-on-one with Mr. Strong Will...trying to get him to nap (unsuccessful)...keeping him redirected...and attempting to dole out the right balance of love, attention, and punishment as various situations occurred. Yeesh.

Anyway, here's the skinny on Skelly:

To make the skeleton perfectly Josiah-sized, Nannan traced around Josiah's body as a starting point for most of the bones. 

 

They referred to some pictures of skeletons for a little guidance on the particulars. Nannan did most of the initial drawing and cutting, and Josiah used a black marker to go over Nannan's pencil lines showing the small bones of the hands, feet, and skull. 

Meanwhile, trying to capitalize on yesterday's PlayDoh success, William and I together made a fish skeleton (after looking at a picture of one in a book). It didn't last long. Our specimen was snatched literally half a second after I took the photo; William wadded it up in inexplicable anger, ran off, and hid it (we found it hours later in the dirty laundry pile). 

Josiah was super pleased with his skelly in the end! The eye sockets are flaps that Josiah can peek through (as in the top photo), and the major joints are hinged with little brass hinging brads. Skelly has already had a full hip replacement, since William tore it a few hours later, but I'm pleased to report that he came through the procedure well.  :)  

By the way...Will turned a bit of a corner later in the afternoon and pulled himself together (after some very serious consequences, some legitimate contrition on his part, a long rest/cuddle with Mommy, and plenty of prayer). He was sound asleep by 7 p.m., and we're all hopeful for a better night and day for everyone!

Hooray for the Granite State!

Josiah, William, and I flew up to New Hampshire yesterday afternoon. The boys were thrilled beyond imagining with the plane ride (their first in 2 years, and the first William can remember). Jesse has been left behind at home, though, so here we are to keep him up to speed with our holiday activities.

If today is anything to go by, we're in for a wonderful vacation.

The day started off normally enough — lots of playing in the loft, Josiah doing Legos with Nannan, and William enjoying PlayDoh. William loved using Nannan's rolling pin and cookie cutters to make an ocean scene with me.

William never passes up a chance to ham it up...

After lunch, William enjoyed a special outing with me and Nannan to play miniature golf. He took instruction on how to point his toes and line up his shots very seriously...not that it significantly reduced his stroke count, of course. He loved every second of the game.





Will then stayed home with Nannan while Josiah got to enjoy his own very, very awesome adventure: going to the New Hampshire Motor Speedway with Papa (and I got to tag along too, at the last minute!). Since Dad is chaplain there, with access to much of the track, and since he was giving the invocation before today's race, we got a fantastic insider's tour. He took us all around in a golf cart...through the campgrounds...we got to go up to see the broadcasting and control rooms...peeked in a skybox...and ended up on the inside of the track, mixing with the drivers as they were getting ready to be announced. Super fun! Then, while Papa did some of his work, Josiah and I sat in the stands and watched the heats and racing for the Global Rallycross event. It was a smallish crowd, nowhere near the 100,000+ likely in attendance for Sunday's major NASCAR Sprint Cup race, but we sure had fun. This race involved jumps, hairpin turns, and a track that was 40% covered in dirt. Crazy stuff. :)

Think Josiah looks happy?  :)

  

Inside the track. Waiting with the Color Guard before the race began. 

Travis Pastrana, one of the more famous drivers apparently, agreed to a quick pic while he was waiting to be announced before the race! 

Dad praying for the invocation. Josiah and I just sort of loitered 20 or so feet back!

Can't really capture the noise and speed and dirt and craziness in photos. (Josiah and I had been leaning on those white barriers while Dad was praying just before the race began.)

Josiah was as thrilled with getting to ride on a golf cart as anything else. Dad had just parked this one with all the others at the ministry area as we were getting ready to head home. 

My handsome 6-year-old. What a lucky boy.

PlayDoh, mini-golf, race cars...not a bad day for me...er...I mean for the boys!