Family Camp Day Two: Under the Sea

Today in "family camp" our theme was "under the sea." We started off with some delicious fish pancakes. No, not pancakes MADE out of fish, but rather regular pancakes that LOOK like fish.
Then we drove to the local fish hatchery for a tour of the visitors center which we soon discovered to be closed (because of "whirling" disease). But we did learn that children under age 12 don't need a fishing license. Good news because my kids are always begging to go fishing.

After that disappointment, we went to the art museum to count how many works had "fish" in them. Can you believe that we only found six? Three in paintings and three on a sculpture. The kids must've looked odd to all the museum docents as they searched from room to room asking, "Are there any fish? Did you see any fish?"

Then we ate some lunch and headed to a local park were there was a very scummy pond full of tadpoles and water bugs. Also at the park we played many "ocean" games such as: sardines, octopus tag, fish-light shark-light (OK, we're reaching there), fish maker (our own version of statue maker), etc. We had a lot of fun and most of the games my kids had never played before.

We then drove home to eat our "ocean dessert" made out of blue Jello, Swedish fish, gummy sharks, gummy frogs and whipped cream. Does anyone else think it odd that Frances bit the heads off of her fish and had them floating at the top?
Then it was off to a hunting/fishing store to see them feed the huge tanks of trout. This is especially exciting because they feed them live goldfish and you always hope one of them makes it out alive. We were a little disturbed by this one trout that just hung out at the bottom of the tank licking the same rock over and over again. Even more disturbing was Nigel's inability to figure out a PlayStation hunting game. We looked around the store, checked out the displays, did some shooting in the shooting gallery and gave in and bought the kids some fishing poles (they don't seem to understand that the down-side to fishing is that you might actually CATCH some fish. Then you have to clean them and eat them! Yuck!).

To end the day we went to a seafood restaurant and ordered a variety of crab, shrimp, lobster, clams, etc. We had a fun time trying everything out and Jeffrey's favorite part was figuring out which ligament to pull to get his crab claw to open and close. As we were leaving, the hostess pulled a lobster out of the tank and let Frances and Alice-Grace hold it and pet it (of course, I wanted nothing to do with it -- I can't stand any animal that doesn't have fur, it's unnatural).

Another fun (but tiring) day of family camp. Can't wait for tomorrow!