camp nin, day 3

On the third day of Camp Nin on the farm, it rained, which is not surprising to any of you who live in Missouri or who have driven past our soggy cornfields and weed-infested gardens. 

While it did cross my mind that the children could learn a lot about electricity and kite-flying by channeling Ben Franklin, we instead decided to study astronomy and the planets . . . indoors. 

First up: Watching a video on just how small the Earth is compared to all the other planets and stars, which have pretty rockin' names like Red SuperGiant. What did we learn? That we are not, in fact, the center of the universe. 

Next: We wore tin foil hats. 

Just kidding. But not really.

Instead, we made alien space ship portholes out of paper plates, tin foils, little alien and spaceships and planets that we colored and, of course, oogly eyes. 

We also discovered they worked pretty well as Frisbees, especially when flung down the basement stairs. 

And then, because it just wouldn't quit raining, we played Bingo, thus rendering my thrift store purchase of a Bingo cage completely and totally worth it. 

(I KNEW it would come in handy one day. I think.)

In keeping with the day's pace theme, my sister even supplied the campers with chocolate space rocks to snack on as well as awesome alphabet pretzels to spell out important things like, "Please make it stop raining!" and "What's for supper?" and "Can you please call B5 so I can win finally?"

The sky finally closed up for an hour or two, so the boys ventured outside to spend some quality soggy time with the pups who were also, well, quite soggy. 

But that's a farming lesson in and of itself: Farming is dirty. Mud exists. Animals get wet. 

Fact. 

We wrapped up with the night with homemade Happy Camper Meals (please don't ask how many times I folded those fry and burger boxes inside out and the same number of times that my mom had to refold them), complete with prizes, which kept us busy until it was time for journals, rest and prayers . . . for, you guessed it, no more rain.