Steve’s Birthday

We celebrated Steve’s birthday on Friday! The day started with rain and pumpkin shaped pancakes! They were yummy!

I made some bread and everyone did the weekly chores. After the rain cleared, Steve and Colin left to do Ant Farm things. When they got back, we were getting ready for the pool party. Steve left to go to the internet and said he would meet us there. The rest of us gatored to the Tide Station dock with all of the pool party equipment. Kyle was driving and he started yelling. We looked and we saw a wall of rain about to hit us. He asked if we should turn back. I said to plow through. Wow. It really hurt. It felt almost like hail it was coming down so hard. And it was freezing. I could see Katrina was getting goosebumps. We made it to the Tide Station dock and we all jumped in the water to get warmer. The rain passed and Colin and Kyle set up the slack line. Then they started to play dibble, which is where a bottle cap that starts out submerged rises to the surface and you try and grab it as you jump in the water. Steve showed up and we all played. Colin was using the slack line to get closer to the cap so the rest of us had to jump really far to grab it.

We made Steve the winner, with it being his birthday and all! Good job, Steve!

At camp, I helped Steve make dinner. For dinner, we had mac and cheese, onion rings, and mashed potatoes. We cleaned up after dinner but didn’t go to the Shark Chute so we could celebrate Steve’s birthday longer.

I went to my tent to get Steve’s present. Katrina was frosting Steve’s cake. And Steve kept trying to peek. We had to keep yelling at him. Cake was first. Katrina made a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. It was topped with dinosaur sprinkles and dinosaur candles.

Steve thought it was adorable. He wanted to look at it longer but the candles were melting fast. He thought of a wish and blew out the candles.

After eating way too much cake, it was time for presents. Colin got him a message in a bottle that contained as piece of paper with _________ on it (it’s a secret). But it was in code. He has to use the decoder to find out what it is. Kyle got him some growing sponge dinosaurs. I got him an alligator toy that washed up on North Island. He loved all of his gifts from us.

Then he opened his birthday bucket and then it was time for my mom’s mystery gift. He shook everything in the box and then chose the one that was speaking to him. He opened it and it was Cranium!!! Why, oh, why didn’t I open this months ago?

We totally played that! Twice! First, Katrina and I won, then the boys. Steve and Kyle seemed to have a kind of mind connection. During a puppet card where you have to move the arms and legs of a teammate and have your team guess what is being acted out, Steve had to move Colin to show a “surprise party” Kyle guessed in less than five seconds. Ridiculous. Then Kyle had to draw a “Pez dispenser” with his eyes closed. Steve guessed it so fast and it didn’t even look like a Pez dispenser. How do they do that?

After the games were over, people wanted to watch a movie. We decided on The Descent, which is a film Kyle got as his mystery gift. Steve’s birthday concluded with a full belly, popcorn, and a film. He said it was a pretty good birthday!

Slack Lining

 

Thank you Colin for bringing a Slack Line to the island and getting me addicted. If you don’t know what a Slack Line is, Google it.  It is basically a flat two inch wide line that you string from one pole to another pole about two feet off the ground (at least that is how high we had it, although, Colin said that people do it nine feet off the ground!)  Anyway, so the goal is to be able to stand on this line.  As soon as I put my foot on it, just resting it on there, the whole thing started to wiggle. How am I supposed to get on this thing when it’s moving all over the place?  It took a lot of attempts but I finally stood on one leg…for about half a second.  But the more times I tried, the longer I could stay up.  Then I tried to take a step.  Ummm….yeah, I guess I have to work on my left leg stabilizer muscles.  As soon as I took a step the line started wiggling again.  It is super frustrating.  I watch Colin do it and he makes like look like a piece of cake.  He can walk on it, jump and land back down on it, he can squat down on it.  It is amazing and he is making me look bad.