Last Day of Camp/Thwaites/Babysitting

Yesterday was the last day of camp. Unbelievable. It was a fast eight weeks, as it always is. This year wasn't as great as it's been in the past, mostly due to the weather. But the last day is always the hardest. It's a long day of packing up. The Art Room was packed in about two dozen milk crates - and two or three huge garbage bags full of stuff for the dumpster. Then all the milk crates have to be transported over to the boat room for winter storage. If they stay in the Art room, we get visits by little critters who chew everything up. The floor needs to be swept one last time and the wooden covers put over the windows. After the kids left, the rest of the staff got together to pull in the docks. They are huge, metal and weigh about a ton apiece. There are about 10 or 12 sections, plus the two wooden floating docks. I can't help with the docks.....they are just too heavy. (I'm not referred to as "old lady vennard" at camp for nothing.) So I went into the office and helped the assistant director pack up all her stuff. Then everyone, including myself, carried in the 20 or so picnic tables and put them in the recreation building. The picnic tables did me in. My back is killing me. But the long, lovely back rub I got from Hubby last night made it all worthwhile. Today we went to a place in Lawrence called "Got a Book". All the books are donated, sold to the public for a $1, and half the proceeds go to charity. Books for a Buck? We couldn't resist. The place was pretty big. There were tables of children's books, some shelves for books for kids 8-14 years old, and the rest of the books were totally unorganized! So there were paperback novels, how-to books, fiction, non-fiction, even textbooks all up on the shelves in willy-nilly order. It could take you days to peruse all the shelves. There were also record albums (remember those?) which are Hubby's downfall, so we bought 6 of those and three books. From there we went to Thwaite's Market. This is a very unassuming little corner convenience store that's been there for years. Their claim to fame is their meat market. They have the most scrumptious meat pies and - something that I've been unable to get at the grocery store for many years - tomato sausage. Tonight for dinner we'll have tomato sausage, home fries and applesauce....mmmmmmm. This is one of the places I've been promising to take Hubby since he moved up here. This afternoon we babysat. We hadnt' seen Emily in two weeks because they were on vacation so it was a pleasure to have her for the afternoon. Doug suggested we take her to Griffin Park, which is up the street in Windham. We took her out and had a blast. She loved playing in the grass, although every time we put her down, she headed for the pavement! There's a little pond where she chatted with the very friendly duck. She thought it was so much fun to play in the bark mulch surrounding the trees. We took her inside the little playground where she went down the slide, sat on a bouncy animal, and went on the swing. We went over to watch the kids on the skateboard park but she thought it was more fun to play in the rocks. Then it started to thunder (surprise! have we had a day with no thunderstorms this summer???) so we got her in the car and took her to the ice cream shop in town. Thank goodness it has an indoors because by that time it was pouring out. Emily loved the raspberry sherbert Hubby was feeding her.....although she made a goofy face every time! When she'd take a bite of my cone, she'd lean her face in for a few seconds as if testing the level of coldness before she took a big bite! She started squirming in her high chair so we put her down and she walked and chattered and charmed every one in the place. They all knew her name when we left! Now it's time to relax, anticipate my tomato sausages, and watch the Olympics.