Aging Up: Camille's Summer '08

Here's a bit more on Summer 2008, featuring some of Camille's adventures.

There she is, a blur of speed in the water at one of her swim meets.

This is Carolyn, who joined us on our Fort Flagler camping trip. Maybe we should have explained that we sleep the long way in a tent, not sideways.

... Carolyn and Camille on the ferry ride, wearing those fashionable, but goofy looking over-sized sunglasses.

What's a trip to the beach without burying someone in the sand?

On a gravel pile in Kansas City, Camille strikes a pose that somehow captures the spirit of her personality. I call her my "Tough Customer". She's a strong-willed kid, persistent but with a compassionate heart and a sensible head.

A trip to Hawaii in July? Sure, can I bring a friend? That would be Camille's pal Hannah who joined her and her dad Mike, who was there for a business trip. The girls had free run of the resort, took a catamaran cruise and a helicopter tour over the volcano there.

This is a mom-cat and her 7 kittens that we fostered over the summer. We have fostered cats and kittens since 2000 with the Seattle Animal Shelter (in fact, I was the team leader of that busy program for about 4 years and I can wax eloquent about cat care). These kittens were born at the shelter on July 2, we took them into foster care when they were 2 weeks old, cared for them until big enough for adoption - at 2 lbs. or about 9 weeks old - got them spayed, neutered, vaccinated, wormed, healthy, friendly and then found good homes for them through one of the shelter's adoption events. The mom kitty, remains in my home as a foster guest for now, until she finds an adopter for herself (interested in a nice cat???? Just reply to this post and we can talk! : )

Here is Camille's friend Alina at Sheep Lake. I've known Alina since before she could walk. She's always been a little reserved, careful and conscientious about things, wore clean, tasteful outfits and sometimes was a little bit timid about rough and tumble stuff. Well, we took her hiking and she declared "I LIKE getting dirty!", she leapt up the trail ahead of me, plunged into the alpine lake and stayed in that cold mountain water for 1/2 hour and scrambled rock walls that made me nervous to climb. Oh, and she petted her first dog EVER when we visited my brother and his dog. It was fun to see this new, bold Alina emerge and I look forward to taking her back-packing again next summer.

Camille experiments with her cameras a lot and has started posting some stuff on You Tube. Here are a couple video snippets from our road trip to Fort Flagler: