Boys Love Sticks

Do you remember the Nissan truck commercial from the late 90's? The one where the Charlie Brown music plays and the Boarder Collie navigates his owner in his owner's recliner down crowded city streets to the Nissan Truck show room and at the very end of the commerical, the Asian man randomly pops up from a manhole in the middle of the street and announces, "Dogs love trucks!" For some reason, I always got a kick out of the Asian man's accent and pronouncement that "Dogs LOVE trucks." And so every time I see my boys (or any little boy) playing with sticks, I always think "Boys love sticks!"

Case in point: We decided to check out the Great Dismal Swamp on Saturday morning. We'd heard from friends that there is an easy hike that begins on the western edge of the Swamp and ends 4 miles later at Lake Dummond in the center of the Swamp. We thought it sounded like a great idea for some fun family time; an excuse to be in the fresh air and let the boys run around.

Here we are in the parking lot, posing for a family picture that Benjamin wasn't thrilled to show his face in (but please notice Samuel's dimples!!): Thankfully we weren't so concerned about actually making it to the Lake. Because once our boys discovered that they didn't have to stay in the stroller and were free to get out and explore... they realized that the trail was covered with sticks. And, man, do boys LOVE sticks!

Big Sticks:

Heavy Sticks:

Long Sticks:

Over the course of an hour, due to constant stick switching, stick dragging, and stick throwing, we estimate that we made it about 1 mile on the trail. But that's ok! Once we turned around, the boys plopped into the stroller and Jason and I were able to hoof it out for a little more intensive exercise.

On a small side note: Boys DO NOT love ticks! We were super careful to all wear long sleeves, long pants, hats, plenty of bug spray (those Dismal Swamp Skeeters are horrid!), and to check for ticks before we got back in the car but halfway through Benjamin's rest time that afternoon, he discovered a tick on his leg. I was grocery shopping at the time but evidently Benjamin was NOT impressed to find a little black bug burrowed into his skin. Thankfully Jason was able to successfully pull the tick out in one piece and it is currently frozen in our freezer, just in case B develops any Lyme Disease symptoms and we need to take the tick in for identification.