Working

Tobias goes to after school care on Thursdays and this year he went up a group. That means that he mingles with bigger children and gets to do “big kids stuff”. One of those things is “working”, on wood really. They have workbenches and tools and wood and they can make stuff. Apparently he likes it because he started asking for wood and started using his toolbox we gave him a while back. At first he was working on the floor, but then I gave him my workmate and that is great. He has really been putting some stuff together… At the after school care they give them real tools, which I think is great. His tools are rather real, except for his saw. So, after concluding that the saw from his toolbox does not work properly, I went out and got him a real one. He is all set!

I have to tell you about one thing he made, tonight… Yesterday we found a dead mouse in the yard. Darwin had killed it. Tobias is so fond of animals that he felt sorry for the mouse. Apparently, this morning, he was thinking about the mouse, probably because he walked right past it (and hence, saw it) on the way to his bike. He talked to Lisa about it and it must have been on his mind, because tonight he quit playing the Wii and said: “Papa, I am going to bury Squeaky.” (The mouse was named Squeaky post mortem…). At first I did not realize what he was talking about, but he actually wanted to bury the mouse. He wanted Lisa to help him, but then I heard him say “Wait mama, first I am going to make him a tomb-stone.”. So, Lisa goes: “How?”. Tobias says: “From those planks in the garage. I’ll make something like this <he points out a rectangle> and we’ll write ‘Squeaky’ on it.”. And that’s exactly what he did. He sawed two pieces of wood, made a cross and wrote Squeaky on it. It is now sitting over Squeaky’s head right by our rose-bush…

Did I ever mention how sweet my boy is? He’s very sweet… :-)!

Camping

I guess we could start calling it a tradition… Tobias and I went out camping again this year. We went to the same place we went last year, except this time we went for two nights. Also we went a little bit earlier in the year which made for nicer weather… I took the Friday afternoon off. I got home around noon or so and we started packing up our stuff. Last year I had to pack all my stuff and Tobias’ stuff on my bike, but this time Tobias had bike bags as well. Also, we had bought our own little air beds, which was nice.

It is so great when Tobias gets so excited about stuff! I had promised to go again, but I hadn’t told him when. I told him about a week before we left, primarily because the weather is so unpredictable and it would be such a disappointment if we would not be able to go because of that. But, from the moment I told him he was bursting with anticipation and enthusiasm! And rightfully so, because we had a great time, again!

Since we were somewhat earlier in the year it was light a lot longer, which enabled us to stay outside longer. As a result we did not play as many games inside the tent, but we did get to see a lot outside. One of the things we saw was a couple of baby-owls learning to fly, which is quite a noisy thing to witness :-). Also, we saw shooting stars. There is not a whole lot I can think of that is better than laying on your back cuddling with your son, looking at the sky and seeing shooting stars… He had never seen one before so the excitement was high and the enthusiasm and thrill indescribable… Let me just say that I treasure those moments and memories.

As you can see in this picture we did not bring much in terms of cooking… We just biked from our campsite to Oudewater to get groceries and got ourselves an instant barbecue :-). We just grilled some meat, had some bread and of course we could not go without roasting some marshmallows. In fact, we made s’mores, despite the fact that we are unable to get graham crackers here… (we repeated this “ritual” the next day).

Basically we had the trip there on Friday, the trip back on Sunday and a full Saturday to spend in the area. Tobias had his first fishing experience in the USA and then Opa bought him a rod in Maasdam, so, he really wanted to go fishing. We went out looking for a rod, but could not find one (strange, really…). Instead we went into two museums: the Ropes Museum and the Witch Museum. That was actually really nice. Tobias made his own jump rope and he went on a “witch hunt”.

We had a nice weekend together and I am pretty sure a tradition was born, because we will definitely do it again next year!