I've had several people ask how our first camping trip went, so I figured I should post about our experience.

I left work early to get ready for our big boys weekend camping trip at Deception Pass. I did some grocery shopping and made a last minute decision to get a cook stove (a Coleman PerfectFlow InstaStart two burner job -- great decision). I picked the boys up from school and started packing the car. I had too much junk, so I had a bit of last second re-packing to do and we were off. We left Bellevue at 4:30pm on a Friday, headed to Deception Pass. The weather was miserable at home, and we were in continuous rush hour traffic pretty much all the way up past Everett, so we didn't get off to a good start.

However, as we got closer to Deception Pass, both the weather and traffic started clearing; by the time we got to the campground 2.5 hours after we left home, the weather was clear and beautiful. We found our site easily (even though the photo on the Parks website wasn't the right one for our site) and got the tent set up; then I went to get the sleeping bags and realized I had forgotten them at home during my mad repacking. My brain raced through the options - go home and get the bags, sleep on the pads wearing all the clothes we brought, bail on the entire thing... The boys looked on nervously as I sat with my head in my hands. I then realized that we weren't that far from civilization; we piled back into the car, drove to Oak Harbor (nine miles away) and bought three new sleeping bags at the Kmart. We were back in business!

We went and played by the water in the lovely sunset, had our fire complete with hot dogs and s'mores. Actually, Michael (7) cooked chunks of sashimi-grade tuna over the fire because he doesn't like hot dogs. We read ghost stories in the tent and listened to the EA-6Bs and P3s from the nearby Naval Air Station Whidbey Island fly their night missions (the aircraft noise was the only real bummer that night). Fortunately, the heavy rain that night drowned out the noise. :)

It was still raining when we woke up; I rigged a tarp over the picnic table and made coffee for myself as the kids slept in. By the time they woke up, the rain cleared up and didn't rain again. After breakfast, we played on the beach, climbed rocks, messed around with the driftwood, tried to find a geocache, and generally mucked about. The guys both managed to flood both pairs of shoes we brought (including rubber boots), so I had shoes drying by the fire.

Michelle landed from her trip to Tokyo, took a nap, and then came up to join us around dinner time. It was getting a bit nippy, so Michelle decided not the stay the night; Michael decided he wanted to go home too, so it was just me and Andrew (10). We had a great breakfast in the morning (pancakes and bacon -- wow, I forgot what a pain it is to cook bacon in a pan. Oven bacon rules!), packed up camp, and came home.

We all had a great time. The boys were already pestering me to go again, so I think it was a success.

As I wrote back in January, I resolved to take the boys camping this year and had booked a camp site. The fateful weekend is now here; we leave tomorrow afternoon for our big adventure at Deception Pass State Park. I think I have everything I need and just need to pack now.

We're all pretty excited, but I admit I'm a little nervous about how it will turn out since this is the first time I've ever really camped. Plus, the weather forecast is a little dicey (70% rain, 50% rain, 20% rain for the three days...). I'm sure we'll make it work.

Anyway, see you on the other side...

I was talking with the boys about the American Declaration of Independence the other day.

Me: "We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal..."
Michael (7) [interrupting]: "What about the super delegates?"

Yeah, I didn't quite know what to say.

I'm a bad father. I try my best to instill the right values for the boys, but sometimes, despite my best efforts, the kids go wrong. I know they're just kids and they are each his own individual person, but I can't help but feel responsible.

The other day, Michael (7) saw me working on a competitive review of Firefox. He noticed their logo and said, "That fox is sooo cute and cuddly. I love it!"

I tried to explain how the fox was really the pawn of a joint communist and Al-Qaeda plot with potential connections to Darth Vader, Voldemort, and people with stinky feet, and that it was trying to undermine truth, justice, and the American way. He didn't care; the fox was cute. (I think I may have lost the argument with the Darth Vader connection.)

I'll keep working with him to reinforce our family values. I hope this is just a fad that he'll grow out of like being a Democrat or vegetarian. :)

At my birthday party last week (eek, 40!), Michael (7) was talking to my friend Kristen.

Kristen: "What are you going to have for dessert?"

Michael: "You."

Kristen [with a practiced hand at batting away advances]: "Well, you know I'm not very sweet."

Michael [with a sly smile]: "Yes, but you're tasty."

Kristen: <silence>

I don't know where he learned that.

Andrew (10) is normally my nice kid, but he made a cruel, but accurate observation the other day.

Andrew [earnestly]: "Dad, you're big but not tall, if you know what I mean."

Time to diet and work out more, I guess...

Andrew (10) has been working on a report on John Jay for quite some time so we talked about it a bit at dinner this evening. I asked Andrew what John Jay did. Andrew proceeded to list off his accomplishments:

• Signed the Declaration of Independence
• President of the Continental Congress
• Active in counter-intelligence during the Revolution
• Secretary of Foreign Affairs (now Secretary of State) under the Articles of Confederation
• Co-author of the Federalist Papers
• First Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court
• Governor of New York State

Throughout this, Michael (7) was unimpressed. Then, Andrew said "he went to Spain" (as the ambassador to Spain), Michael lit up and said "woo".

I guess all those other things were less cool than visiting Spain. Michelle then pointed out that she had just been to Spain. Michael was appropriately impressed there too. Not sure where his Spanish thing comes from. Guess we'll need to go to Spain sometime.

(I actually didn't know anything about John Jay before Andrew's report. Impressive dude. He helped free all the slaves in New York before he died too.)

I think it's important as a parent to keep your children connected with their heritage. Food, clearly, has tons of cultural and ritual meaning, so it's an important tradition to pass down.

With this in mind, this weekend, I introduced the kids to Marshmallow Fluff, a staple food in the Midwest (I grew up in Minnesota.) For those of you unfamiliar with this gooey concoction, Wikipedia describes it as a "very sweet, spreadable, marshmallow-like confection".

Andrew (10), who loves marshmallows, hated the Fluff. I think it kind of grossed him out, like many traditional foods do. I'm sure he'll develop a taste for it as he grows up. He'll thank me for it when he's older.

Michael (7) discovered the magical combination of peanut butter and fluff (well, soynut butter in his case since he's allergic to peanuts). While he didn't love the fluffernuter sandwich I sent him to school with, he does love dipping granola bites into the mixture. Kids these days.

It's tough being a responsible parent, but I keep trying. I will probably introduce them to hotdish or Western Dressing next.

As I mentioned last week, we took the boys to see the Seattle Symphony perform a show called "PLAY! A Video Game Symphony". The symphony played songs from various video games.

The concert was enjoyable. There were three large screens suspended over the symphony showing scenes from the games. While the scenes weren't set to the music, it was helpful to see the games with the music and fun to see old school stuff like the original Zelda or Mario games.

They also showed close-ups of the musicians playing; since we were about three rows from the back of the auditorium in the highest balcony, it was especially nice see musicians doing their thing. I wish they did this in all symphony performances.

I admit I was a little surprised by the quality of the scores. While some of the songs like Super Mario Brothers were just fun and nostalgic, the newer scores were often beautiful. Since video games have become as huge financially as movies (bigger now, I think), I guess it makes sense that they can attract a similar caliber of composer for games as movies. They sometimes felt a bit formulaic (for example, almost every fighting game broke into a martial snare drum beat), but I'm this may have been just the samples they chose. As a Microsoft guy, I was pleased how good the medley from HALO was; in particular, the opening bars of the HALO theme are really distinctive.

One interesting note: two of the composers, Jeremy Soule and Martin O'Donnell, were in the audience - not something I've seen before since most classical music composers are, well, dead.

The boys were well-behaved through the concert, although by the end of the three hour performance, Michael (7) was getting sleepy and fidgety (I was too). Andrew (10) really loved it though. All in all, it was a good first symphony experience for them.

In case you're curious, here's the program:

Nobuo Uematsu	Play! Opening Fanfare
Nobuo Uematsu/Square Enix	FINAL FANTASY VII-Liberi Fatali
Koji Kondo/Nintendo	Super Mario Bros
Takenobu Mitsuyoshi/Sega	Shenmue
Joel Eriksson/Electronic Arts	Battlefield 1942
Nobuo Uematsu/Square Enix	FINAL FANTASY VII-Aerith's Theme
Masato Nakamura/Sega	Sonic the Hedgehog
Tappy Iwase/Konami	Metal Gear Solid
Yoko Shimomura&Kikaru Utada/Disney/Square Enix	Kingdom of Hearts
Jeremy Soule/Bethasoft/UbiSoft	THE ELDER SCROLLS IV: OBLIVION
Nobuo Uematsu/Square Enix	FINAL FANTASY SERIES-Swing de Chocobo
Yasunori Mitsuda/Square Enix	Chrono Trigger/Chrono Cross
Jason Hayes/Blizzard	World of Warcraft
Akira Yamaoka/Konami	Silent Hill 2
Martin O'Donnell/Microsoft	HALO
Koji Kondo/Nintendo	The Legend of Zelda
Nobuo Uematsu/Square Enix	FINAL FANTASY VII-One Winged Angel

They also played a special additional score by Jeremy Soule, although I missed the title.

Next week, the Seattle Symphony will be performing a show called "PLAY! A Video Game Symphony", described as:

Watch graphics from your all-time favorite blockbuster video games—including Super Mario Bros.,^® HALO^® and The Legend of Zelda^®—on the big screen while Seattle Symphony, Vocalpoint! Seattle and Northwest Boychoir perform the soundtrack.

They have a show next Thursday (1/24) at 7:30pm and a matinee Saturday, 1/26 at 1:00pm. Both shows are at the incredible Benaroya Hall. Unfortunately, it's not cheap; the lowest priced tickets are about $50 each with most of those sold out on Thursday already.

In any case, I thought it would be a fun way to introduce the boys to the symphony, so we're going to one of the shows. I'll let you know how it is.