River Riders II

For the second summer in a row, Connor spent a week in Harper's Ferry West Virginia at River Rider's adventure camp.  This year his friend Adam joined him.  They had a blast kayaking, swimming, tubing, rafting, zip lining, etc.  They also spent a day at go-carts and paintball.  We're down 2 water bottles and a brand new shoe.  I think there may be a direct correlation between how great camp is and how much stuff you leave behind. 

Young Anglers Fishing Camp

In between those two beach weekends Connor went to Young Anglers Fishing Camp for a week.  Its a day camp run by the folks at Fish and Explore.   For five days he and four other boys traipsed all over Northern Virginia fishing with an expert.  They fished Goose Creek, the Shenandoah river, the Chesapeake bay and a few "secret" spots.  He had a great time and I got some great pics this week from his counselor.  Its a definitely on the list for another week or two next summer. 

The Baird Boys

Connor went to tennis camp last week with the Baird boys. Ralph carted them back and forth from Alexandria every day and for two nights Connor stayed at their house. What great friends. And what great fun.

So Dramatic!

This week, Connor has been attending Fakespeare Theatre Camp. I've been impressed with how well run it is, how much there is to do, and how much he's enjoyed it. I also think its a nice follow up to that week outside in 95 degree temps traipsing through the woods at Archaeology camp. AHHHH! The unmitigated joy of air conditioning!

Along with the drama, they have lots of fun building things and enjoying games and competition. However, the drama is where its at and tomorrow we'll get to enjoy a play that is some comical version of Julius Caesar. Connor was delighted to tell me that he had "won a role" and will be portraying the doomed emperor himself. The best part of which is the great benefit of getting to DIE in front of an audience. I can't wait to see it.

Mom, Did You Know That...

...you can finish that up with about 100 different things.   I heard this so many times this week..and it made me really happy.  Connor had a great week at Archaeology Camp at Claude Moore Park.  I think it would be pretty difficult to quantify all of the stuff he learned.  They got to sift for artifacts, metal detect, skeleton (animal and bone) identification, etc.  The camp was lead by a real archaeologist with an actual Ph.D. who did a fantastic job of really engaging the kids.  And after finding all the pottery shards, they got to make pots of their own.   He rated this the best camp of the summer so far ahead of baseball with basketball coming in third.  

Basketball Camp

Connor spent the first week of summer at Giant Basketball Academy's summer camp.  He's played two winters in their league so we figured it was a good bet.   He seemed to have a good time (he's not big on the "how was your day" feedback) and there were two kids there that he knew from baseball so he had immediate friends.  He missed Friday because we headed out of town on our camping trip and that was too bad because during the first four days they qualify for Friday competition events and he qualified for three events:  3 on 3, 1 on 1, and Foul Shots.   His coach told Bob that he's a pretty good player---he does seem to really like it.  So, finally, this week, his basketball hoop (which was a birthday gift in April) got set up in the driveway.  I have to say, the kid makes some nice shots.  And Palmer definitely wants in the game!