2024 Life Logs, Day 243: Final Day of Camp Oma 2024
Date: Friday, August 30, 2024
Weather: Sunny; High Temp 69, Low 62 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview, Falmouth, MA
Twelve summers ago, in June of 2013, Camp Oma was born. This was our name for Oma and Granddad providing day care for the Goldpebbles in the summer months. That first summer, Mark and I were living aboard Windbird and Mark was working most days at West Marine. We offered to keep Sam and Jonah, who were 5 and 3, every Tuesday and Thursday, and some days in between. Ollie joined us on some days, but he was only one and not yet prepared to keep up with his brothers on a daily basis. On our first Tuesday, Mark and I took Sam and Jonah to Provincetown to go on a whale watch. The next day was Jonah’s 4th birthday. He woke up with a high fever, so Heather took him to see his pediatrician. The doctor declared he had strep throat, so he spent his birthday alternating between sitting on the deck in a big tub of water to help bring down the temperature and napping. By day’s end, he was feeling better and said he wanted to come to Windbird for day two of Camp Oma. A two-year-old Sam had announced he was Windbird’s captain when he visited us in Thailand. We explained to him that he could be co-captain, but Granddad was the captain. Jonah knew that the plan for this second day of Camp Oma was to induct him into co-captain status and he wasn’t going to miss that. Heather brought Ollie as well, and he was declared Captain-in-Training.
Captain Granddad with Three of His Co-Captains
Camp Oma grew from Tuesdays and Thursdays that first year eventually to five days a week for a few years. Now that the boys are older, it is five days a week, but not all day, every day. It is on an ‘as needed’ basis. Today was the final day of Camp Oma 2024 marking 12 summers of fun and all I could think of all day was how much those Goldpebbles have grown! What a lucky grandmother I am to have been given the opportunity to spend so much quality time with the Goldpebbles, watching them grow. On to Camp Oma 2025.
