Family Camp

For Dena's birthday weekend we had decided to go stay at a family camp with some friends we knew from Fiona's pre-school. I was sorry to miss Elan's wedding which was the same weekend, but we had booked this some time ago (before I had noticed that Elan and Chris were tying the knot on Labor Day weekend). Camp Kennolyn turned out to be an amazing piece of 1950's Americana. Built around 1947 it comprised of a series of wooden shacks (one per family with a shared wall), a communal dining hall, pool and series of outdoor activities such as rock climbing, shooting and archery. Normally I am not fan of this sort of thing at all, but the place had such historic charm I must admit to immediately unwinding and enjoying myself thoroughly.



We had expected Alexander would go off with a group of kids his own age and do all manner of activities from dawn till dusk, but he chose to stay close to his parents, determining that this was family place and that he should try and get as much family time with his Dad as possible. (I have been on the road rather a lot recently and our father/son relationship has certainly gotten strained of late). All in all he was very well behaved the whole time we were there I really enjoyed playing tennis and table tennis as well as swimming with him in the pool.
On the Saturday Dena managed to get some time in to do some crafts with Fiona's help- making a mosaic stepping stone and a pot. Unfortunately the stepping stone teacher had given the class the wrong recipe for the mortar and by Sunday the stone was cracked in several places. Dena didn't faire well with her pot either- it breaking when it was fired. "Oh the pots really need to dry out for about week before you fire them, otherwise the often break like this." her pottery teacher told her. Needless to say having spent several hours of Saturday making stuff (during an oh so short interlude sans children) , all of which broke through no fault of her own make Dena rather angry and she went off and gave the camp director a piece of her mind. Sunday dinner was the last straw: Meatless lasagna and peas (Dena hates peas).

"Right I want to go out for dinner right now." she demanded so off we went to Bangkok West for a decent Thai dinner.
"You don't suppose the camp staff will try and sing me Happy Birthday over dinner do you?" she asked on the way out of the camp.
"No they don't they don't know it's your birthday. I never told them."
"Er.. well I might have told them it was my birthday for effect when I was complaining about my pot."
"Oh."
Sure enough, when we snuck back into the camp for the final sing song round the old camp fire the director (who had doubtless instructed all his staff to keep a watchful eye out for a certain AWOL camper), immediately asked who ever had a birthday to stand up and the whole camp sang her "Happy Birthday" very fast and very loud while she blushed.

The hard of flash can click here.