No I did not take any pictures

Because I am trying to ease into this blogger lifestyle.  The whole thing reminds me of the computer that my parents bought the year that I left home.  My younger sister could tell you what the computer looked like and maybe even share heart warming stories of creating her first document.  I was born just a little too early destined to experience technology when it was too raw and expensive for the average, over intellectual user.

There were people who had web sites and blogs in 1997 when Rabiah was born.  They tracked their obsession with Lord of the Rings and particle theory usually on the same blog.  Meanwhile  I taught Rabiah how to operate the VCR and I must boast that she could rewind with some degree of patience by the time she was two and she really appreciated the Mary-Kate and Ashley videos that I found for her at the thrift store when she was four.  Of course by then I could have had a blog but instead I had another baby.

I am tradition adverse.  If the blog had been named in honor of me instead of Rabiah it would have been called "Let's do Something Different". I can however say with both pride and pleasure that co-leading the AMC Memorial Day weekend family camping trip to New Hampshire for the last five years has become a tradition.

We have broken with the tradition of being stuck for four hours in traffic on Friday night by driving to the Campton State Campground (group site please!) early on Saturday morning.  In the same way that some responsible parents take pride and perverse pleasure in occasionally staying up way too late with their young and impressionable children, I take pride in occasionally including them in my absurdly early mornings.  I actually compromise a lot and allow them to sleep until 5:30 am and to travel in pyjama and flip flops.

The highlights of this years trip, climbing up to Mt. Pemigawsett and Harvard Falls on Saturday.  A huge group of 30 for the first hike and markedly fewer on the 2nd but both falling in the exhilarating family fun that did not leave us much worse for wear.   Sunday we went hardcore, 11 children and their 10 adult companions and minders undertook the challenge of Mt. Liberty, a mere 4500 feet but 3000 feet of vertical climbing over 7.5 miles.  Weather conditions were challenging to the adults who found the damp, hot and humid conditions like hiking through a YMCA sauna with a wet towel in front of their faces.  Children were adequately weighed down and I set the brisk pace that allowed me to remain in the lead (just barely).  Thick clouds ensured that their was not view from the rocky summit but we all enjoyed what ever food it was that we ate up there in the relative cool conditions that prevailed in the top few hundred feet of the mountain.

Non-stop rain during most of the month ensured that mosquitoes were fierce around camp but they seemed to favor the children and the children were so busy rounding up kids from other sites for games of manhunt and truth or dare that they did not notice how badly they were bitten until we returned home.