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| pic of the day this is clearly not buddy :) it is nola, the new puppy belonging to our friends who came to the camp with us for easter. but john loves nola, too. |
easter sunday was a big day: we brought john to the camp with us for the first time! for those of you not from south louisiana, "the camp" is a very fascinating local entity. most families have a camp somewhere. they're typically in the middle of nowhere, on the water. some people have hunting camps, some people have fishing camps. ours is sort of a general recreation camp. it's a well-loved ramshackle cypress shack on a small spit of land called graveyard island. about eight feet from the back door is the belle river, with a dock where the boats are parked. about eight feet from the front door is the gravel road, then the lake, where we swim and fish. there are alligators, though they tend to steer clear from the people. there are bugs and dirt and always a wet dog or six running around. sounds awful, yeah? actually it's great. so much fun ...
(as an aside, if you've ever watched swamp people on the discovery channel, troy and his family hunt not too many miles from our family's camp on lake verret. we go out to lake verret on the boats to swim and visit the local water-access bars.)
anyway, about a million friends and family were down at the camp, and we brought a couple we're friends with. surprisingly there were only three dogs including nola, because unfortunately part of our family and their dogs were at the camp saturday and we missed them.
one of my cousins has a 13-month-old, so john and nathan had a grand time playing in the dirt. since nathan walks, john tried to mimic him a little bit by putting his feet flat on the ground and doing a downward facing dog position.
john was NOT much of a fan of his life-vest, but needless to say he had to wear it when we went out on the boat. he did fine once he settled in a little bit. he hated swimming in the lake and there was nothing mommy could do to persuade him that it wasn't a scream-worthy experience the entire time ... oh well, he'll get used to it!!
we all ate too much crawfish and easter candy (ok, john didn't get any of those), got really dirty, and generally had a great time with the family and friends. all the excitement meant john got no nap, but he slept fine that night and is back on his schedule no problem.
one of my favorite parts of being a mom is definitely watching john experience new things. as long as we're in louisiana, the camp will be a big part of our summer adventures, so i'm sure we'll watch him grow into it ... we'll have to dig out the old bamboo fishing poles us cousins used when we were kids, so the next generation can start cricket-fishing for brim on the shore. and he may even learn to kneeboard in a few years, or water ski like we did back in the day. it's crazy to think of this new generation, and it's wonderful to think of them experiencing the camp like we did. it makes me smile.
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