Saturday, September 01, 2007

Camp Champoeg

Today we took the kids to Homestead day at Camp Champoeg.

They had many fun activities going on there. My 8-year-old son was fascinated by the old-time blacksmith who was demonstrating how nails and other items were made way back when. He then let a long line of children take turns at pounding out their own nail. I was very impressed by this, as it was quite a hot day and the man running the station was standing by a hot fire the whole time. My son was thrilled, and that nail has not left his pocket since!

They also had a wheat threshing demonstration, a peddler's cart where you could choose beads and shells to make a craft, old-time children's games, food samples, fresh produce from their wonderful garden which the kid's could choose from, and of course fresh lemonade.

They have a small museum there and we especially liked the animal pelts ( that's the closest I ever want to be to a skunk!). The admission fee of $3.00 per car was the usual day fee, and other than that it was donations only.

We all had a good time, and it was much cheaper than the state fair! We followed that up with supper at Jack-in-the-box and then ended the day with a family bike ride at another local park ( we had to work off all that greasy food!).

I love that good, tired feeling at the end of a day spent doing things together as a family.