Oceans Camp Field Trip

 The main point of doing Ocean Camp in summer is so that we can have any reason at all to go to the beach. For school, right??

Field trip!

We started at Gibson Cove this morning, which a couple of weeks ago was great tidepooling to find all sorts of sea creatures. 

But the odds weren't in our favor, and the cove isn't very sandy or fun, so we ditched it and went to our favorite spot at Boy Scout Beach, which actually had everything we were looking for. Sand. Sea stars. Sunshine. And unlike public school field trips, I only had two kids to look after. 

Chaperones not required. 

Waving at the C-130s as they did "touch and go's" over our head

Then we came home for stuffed crab lunch (tuna fish in Bugles), and Starfish peanut butter sandwiches and the kids went on the giant neighborhood slip n slide. 

Now that's a good field trip day. 

Don't Sink Your Banana!

 I have a hard time sitting still. 

I mean that figuratively and literally, as I have restless leg syndromes (aka heebie jeebies, aka "Flitter Trickies" as Camden named them many years ago). Maybe it's my PNW roots, but if the sun is shining and the temperature is nice around here, I literally can't be inside. 

The sun was shining today and I planned on just heading to our favorite haunt in the summer - Boy Scout Beach. I texted a friend to see if she wanted to join us with her kids. She responded with a "we're going on a hike - right now, want to join us?"

Obviously, because Adventure is Out There. 

So I literally threw a lunch together and got our daypacks situated and off we went to Near Island to hike the South end trail and have lunch on the beach. We've done this hike 100 times but I still enjoy it, and it's outside. 

After enjoying Near Island for a couple hours, we went home so Calen could do his newspaper route and mow a neighbor's lawn (I'm telling you, summer lawnmowing jobs have withstood the test of time and generations), but I still wanted to go out and do something as a family, since Brad missed the hike. I didn't really want to hike again and it was high tide. What should we do? Should we sit home and go out another day?

Obviously, never. 

We packed the Banana (our adoring name for our bright yellow inflatable kayak), grabbed Subway for dinner, and went to the Boy Scout lodge to borrow their hard sided canoe (after all, Brad being Scoutmaster needs to have some sort of perks) and headed out for our second adventure of the day. I told him that I thought it would be great to launch from the sea plane base at the far end of south Near Island, since I noticed earlier during the hike that the waters in the channel were incredibly calm. Well, count on me for a misadventure, because the base has zero boat launches and no public access either. So we turned around and headed for the Near Island marina, which has duel boat launches but really is geared for the plethora of fishing vessels coming in and out. 

If Kodiak was ever to have a rush hour, this was it, in the form of fishing boats being taken in and out of the boat launch. We settled to the side of it and ate our Subway, and then launched the canoe and the Banana during a short break between fishing boat launches. 

We probably looked like quite the spectacle. Talk about a fish out of water. Pun intended.

 

The water was absolute glass today, not just in the marina but out in the channel as well. We cruised past the dock full of a hundred sea lions, in which they snorted and grunted and were extremely curious of us going by (maybe they've never seen a floating banana before).

After the sea lion docks we went past the breakers and navigated around about half of Near Island. Getting around the first corner was tricky, because we decided to "thread the needle" and get in between a series of large rocks. The boys were arguing in the Banana behind us, and a rock came out of nowhere in front of the canoe in which Brad had to hit the brakes and avoid (I have an arm injury from playing city league softball and am completely useless). The boys were still arguing as we were giving out directions, and I had to shout "DON'T SINK YOUR BANANA!!!" to get their attention. 

You know, things you never thought you'd say outloud before you become a parent. 

Once we were in open water, the lack of waves still made if perfectly glassy, so we could watch jellyfish float by and the occassional sealion pop up to investigate us. We got about a third of the way around Near Island before we decided to cross the channel to some random uninhabited island, because we can, that's why. 

Once we landed on Popof Island (thanks Google Maps, not to be confused with Popof Island further in the Aluetians), we wandered around and skipped rocks for half an hour, looking out over Near Island across the channel (and the beach we had lunch at). 

Popof Island, the tiny little island you never knew existed. 

Rock skipping. Near Island is in the forefront, Kodiak in the back

GLASSY water. Our little Popof island behind us. 

This was a great adventure because while we've gone kayaking/canoeing before, we had never done it in open water before, and it gave us a new and neat perspective of Kodiak from a different angle. 

Ocean Camp!

 Back in the day, like ages ago when my kids were in public school, I didn't believe in summer school at all. Kids need a break! Kids need to be free all summer!

I mean, I still believe this in part. 

But in the two school years we've now done homeschool, I also believe in keeping them busy, keeping their brains active, and making learning fun. Summer learning camp and all that nonsense. 

The new curriculum we started at the end of this past school year is strictly 20 day unit-studies, and so I thought shoot, why couldn't we do one unit study over the summer? And make it...dare I say....fun?

And what better topic to learn (the audacity) over the summer than Oceans?

So I bought the unit study and a couple variations of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne has become a favorite author of both boys), strung up some blue lights, and planned for Ocean Camp. 

We can't call it school, because SCHOOL is for the SCHOOL YEAR. So this is Camp. Ocean Camp. Like Shark Week, on steroids and extra credit. 

The kids, although resistant to summer school (I mean, camp, summer school might as well be a four letter word), love Shark Week and the crafts/snacks/documentaries that go along with it, so this is the next best thing. Or sloppy seconds, you decide. 

The first day of Ocean Camp we learned about the creepy weird fish that are way, way deep near the ocean floor, drew an angler fish, and went to Jewel Beach to have a picnic lunch and collect as much sea glass as possible for an art project later in the unit. 

Then baked cod for dinner and Finding Nemo, because nothing says cannibalism like eating fish while watching a movie about cute fish protaganists. 

Do ya? Do ya? DO YA. 

Fish are Friends, not Food. That's what they say in the movie, right?

Adventure Is Out There - Marin Ridge

 It's been a while since we did a family outing. 

Normally by this time in June we are well on our way to hiking every accessible mountain and/or trail on the road system, but this summer has been busy, between me working (doing move out cleans on military housing), Boy Scout summer camp, and 750 sleepovers with Calen's best friend Noah (who moved away yesterday, tragically). 

Seriously, doesn't someone have a time machine or a time stopper spell or something?

After an exceptionally hard morning yesterday (see above: Calen's BFF moving away), our other family friends (the Ardan's) asked if we wanted to go on an afternoon hike and dinner on the beach. I said YES, this is a great distraction for Calen, a hike with two other good buddies, the beach, anything that isn't moping around at home. So we packed up kids, the dog, 1000 snacks and headed out on an adventure. 

This was a new hike for us, which is saying something considering we live on an island - we've hiked almost everything on the road system. Heading out towards Pasagshak (i.e. the far side of the island going in the opposite direction of town), there's a hidden trailhead about ten miles before the road (literally) ends, called Marin Ridge. It's mildly steep at the beginning, then levels out to a very pleasant ridgeline that overlooks the back mountains and both bays. Of course, it decided to be foggy/overcast for the first time in a week, so the views were limited, but it was still a really nice shorter hike up among the clouds. And the views we did get, were spectacular. 

After the hike we piled back in the car and drove the rest of the way to the end of the road to Surfer's Beach, which is exactly what it sounds like, a nice sandy beach with gorgeous cliffsides and great surfing waves. We made a fire on the sand and roasted sausages and had meat and cheese wraps for dinner and the kids played in the sand for a couple hours. 

Really it was a great adventure day that we will probably recreate in a few weeks. 

The Things You Say (teenager edition)

 It's really weird having someone in your house old enough to fringe on your generation's pop culture. 

It's probably even weirder when I fringe on his pop culture, but luckily that's not really in existence yet, other than the phrases "Bruh", "Sus", and "that's cringe", but those are ridiculous stupid phrases and I'm not interested in being that cool, thanks. 

My kids have an Amazon Echo Dot (also known as "Alexa") in their playroom. I'm explaining this more than necessary because everyone on the entire planet has an Alexa, but thirty years from now when I dig this out of some time capsule and will laugh and laugh at the archaic devices that adorned our houses. You know as some droid named Betty preps dinner and sweeps the floor, "Jetsons" style. 

Anyways, I came upstairs today and I hear the Backstreet Boys "I want it that way" playing on their Alexa. 

The Backstreet Boys. 

So like any self-respecting child of the 90s, I start singing along at the top of my lungs. The boys stare at me with confused and slightly embarrassed wonder. 

Calen goes: "You know this song?"

And I said "Uhhh, obviously."

Calen: "They're called the Backstreet Boys. They make pretty good music!"

I start to chuckle and I go "Calen, I know all about the Backstreet Boys. I guarantee you I know more about them than you ever will."

Calen: "Oh....are they really old or something?"

Me: "I mean, twenty years ago old. Sure."

Twenty YEARS. Gosh. 

I figured this would horrify the boys and they would turn it off or something, because what cool kid in the world has the audacity to listen to their Mom's popular music. But it didn't deterr them, they continued to sing along, and then the next song was Maroon 5 (their first album) and I suddenly realized that I am completely succeeding in raising perfect children. 

Even if they think Backstreet Boys is REALLY OLD. 

Photo of Camden jumping the skate park, for fun. 

Summer Camp As It Should Be

 Note: Summer camp happened like a week ago. But it was a crazy week of house cleaning and overall adulting and I'm just getting to it now. Better late than never, or so they say. 

Summer camp has gotten weird in recent years. 

Not that I have anything to base it on, as I went to summer camp exactly zero times in my youth. But, I know how it used to be because...well...I just know. 

Every summer camp nowadays seems to be for a specific reason of productivity. Sports camp. Math camp. Morse Code camp. Pre-med camp??

Listen, I don't have anything against camps that teach you something. As long as it's fun for the kids, right? Maybe it's a great alternative to summer school. In which case I can get fully onboard. But if we are choosing Math Camp for "fun"...

Anyways, I am just as guilty of tossing my kids into productivity camps, especially for sports. Hockey camp, baseball camp, I'll be the first to sign them up. But remember the image of summer camp in the 90s, Salute Your Shorts style (if you didn't watch Nickelodeon in the 90s, did you even have a childhood?), campfires and smores and pranks and canoeing, among other wilderness adventures. There's just a lack of that in the world nowadays. 

Unless you live in Alaska. 

Boy Scouts here in Kodiak is small, but alive. And what better place to do Boy Scouts than the rough wild of the Last Frontier, anyways? Every summer they do a week long summer camp, and it's real camp, thankyouverymuch. Tent camping in the bugs and the (inevitable) rain and canoeing and smores and everything you'd ever envision summer camp to be. And as luck would have it, Brad is somehow in charge of Boy Scouts, so between he and I we got to basically plan the summer camp events single handedly. And this year, Camden was old enough to go too!

So what does a week of Boy Scout summer camp look like in Kodiak? Check out the schedule:


So, I guess I have to take it back. We are pretty productive this week. Every "event" makes progress towards a certain merit badge, even the cooking of meals. I guess even we are just as guilty as every other camp. But at least it's fun campy-type stuff?

After the boys pitched their tents for the week, they were each given a block of wood to carve throughout the week for a little friendly wood carving competition. The winner comes home with a new knife, those that don't still come home with a merit badge. 

Throughout the week they also did First Aid and Emergency Preparedness training, canoeing and kayaking (including flipping the boats on purpose to simulate how to save yourself from being upended), rifle shooting, cooking over open flames, a hike up a mountain and then building a shelter from scratch and sleeping in it overnight. 

Basically, it was Wilderness Survival in Alaska Camp. 

I mean, is there anything better when it comes to camp?

Calen commandeered one of the days to work on his cooking merit badge. He was required to cook over open flame for all three meals, in which he prepared: eggs bacon and hasbrowns for breakfast, chili hot dogs for lunch and chicken teriyaki for dinner. 

Camden has developed quite a fear of deep water (where he can't see the bottom) and conquered it on the second day, finallly flipping his canoe and floating in the water while getting himself "out of trouble". This small feat was huge for him in perseverance and facing your fears. 

Photo dump!

Shooting range. Both boys prone while their buddy spots

Canoeing. Camden in the water

Calen and best buddy Noah working on kayaking

Back to shooting. Calen is a crack shot!

Wilderness Survival - they had to build a rescue litter and carry an injured Scout down the trail. Camden in neon green (because we'll never lose him that way)

More canoeing. Cam in the water!