PA Wilds Child

Nadia and Ian participated in the PA Wilds Child program today at Back Moshannon State Park. This park is in the general direction of State College. It took us 75 minutes to get there. If we were a little closer we might go out there more often, but I thought it was worth the drive for a six hour program. There were three one hour classes plus a break for lunch and time to walk from session to session. There were over 100 children there, but there were usually no more than about 15 kids in a particular session because they had multiple sessions running during each of the four periods. Classes including things like hand spinning, wilderness survival, kayaking, hiking, atlatl, first aid, rope making, bee keeping, campfire cooking, fire fighting, etc. Nadia and Ian had three classes together - geocaching, archery, and rock climbing. During the third session Ian made a scented wax teddy bear (his favorite activity of the day) while Nadia was fishing. Once a fish bit her worm, and another time she screamed that she caught one, but he escaped before she could reel him in. At the registration

they provided juice and small donuts, and at lunch they served hot dogs, chips, apples, and cake. Our lunches were included in the registration fee. Ian's least favorite activity was the rock climbing. He only made one small attempt, and then his fear of heights brought an end to that. On the other hand, Nadia went up many times over the course of an hour. She was very proud to ring the buzzer at the top a couple of times!

Oliver spent the day at Grandma and Pop Pop's house. The plan had been for all of us to see our town's parade this evening. Oliver usually loves to see the fire engines, and the other two love to pick up pieces of candy. But Nadia REALLY wanted to go swimming. I should have packed our swim suits, and they could have swum in the lake at the park. Instead the three of us came home, ate a very quick meal, and then drove to the pool. The plan at that point was to just have a short swim and go straight to the parade, but there were some other kids at the pool whom Nadia and Ian were really enjoying playing with, so they decided to skip the parade. Paul also decided to skip the parade since Oliver fell asleep in the van on the way home from work/ Grandma's house. Ian was very sweet and he put a Pittsburgh Steeler ribbon on the coconut scented wax teddy bear in my honor.