A Campfire

It's been great to use Sam's firepit for fires in our backyard this summer, but it's still not quite the same as going up the canyon! I was hoping we'd be able to find a time the whole family could go have a campfire, but that's a difficult feat these days. We finally figured out that if most of us went up the canyon on the afternoon of Labor Day, and then Abe joined us in the other car after work and then Seb took that other car BACK to work…there would be about 40 minutes where we could all be there together. Okay, done! We packed dinner and camp chairs and headed out, hoping it wouldn't be too crowded. Luckily, there was one picnic site left!

Wood-chopper

Bouquet-maker

Zig offers me…something.

This was Clementine's first time in the canyon or…pretty much anywhere. She seems quite impressed, doesn't she?

Ted and Zig explored, and did NOT fall in the river.

The face of an angel! Gus was toddling around carrying a paper cup, and then shoving it upside down into the cupholder on my chair. The cup was a little too wide for the cupholder, so it would get stuck, and then Gus would yank on it trying to get it out for a few minutes, and then YELL in frustration and annoyance. This sequence repeated itself about fifty times throughout the evening. A few minutes after I took this picture, I was saying to this angel-face in exasperation "Gaaa! Stop DOING that!"

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Campfire at the End of All Things

Oh, not really the end of all things. Just at the end of summer. But it seemed like summer ended very suddenly this year because we went to Canada and it was like we were in some world out of time—and then we got back and everything schedule-y and Fall-y immediately started up again! It felt like we didn't even have time to take a breath! So a pause on Labor Day was very welcome, and provided us a moment to stop and remember that we really had had a lovely summer.

Sometimes Labor Day is a little chilly, but not this one—it was warm even after it got dark, and the crickets in the canyon were deafening! We forgot the hot dog buns, but Abe and I made an emergency run to the 7-11 at the mouth of the canyon and got all they had—hamburger buns—which worked just fine.

They took out the playground at this picnic area (why? why?) but there's still a wooden walkway which is fun to run back and forth on, I guess.

North-going Zax and South-going Zax. I don't think they actually collided this time!

Ziggy seemed to feel that it was a sober, solemn thing to sit in a little chair just his size.

Would that more of us took our sitting duties so seriously.

You can see Ziggy's steady progression from Rather Mildly Grubby to Quite Alarmingly Dirty in these pictures. I just try not to think about it, while it's happening.

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Labor Day Campfire, from the lost archives

I came upon these pictures on an old memory card a few days ago (December 2025) and it was so fun to be transported back to the past for a little while! I remember these little people so well. Where have they all gone? 

I'll put the date of this post where it belongs, in Sept 2018, but just know that I was seeing it all through new eyes. Wouldn't it have been interesting if I could have seen forward in time to when I'd find the pictures? Three boys practically grown, three girls turning into young ladies, Teddy and Ziggy smart little schoolboys…and I didn't even know there would be a Gus and a Clementine yet! Time is such a funny thing.

Foot in air

Chubby little cheeks!

I wonder what great affront was committed to produce this reaction?

This was Ziggy's "poik" era!

These two were always friends

Round tum!

That sticky mouth deserves a close-up!

Looking admiringly at Daddy

Back then a climb like this was a feat for Malachi!

Good old Abe!

A big HOMP!

Did someone take his cracker? Or did he just finish it?

Looking at sparks

Matching pointers

Last pink light on the peaks

Just a beautiful, everyday, day!

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