Monday, February 22, 2010

Free Write

My favorite childhood memory would have to be my summers going up to the family cottage. We went up to our family cottage every Sunday during the summer. The cottage is on Lake Deneveu. It is a little private lake that is south of Fond Du Lac Wisconsin. It is only a mile long by half a mile wide. It is only a 25 minute drive from my house. It is shared by all my aunts and uncles from my dad side of the family. It’s a good time because I get to see all my cousins which is really nice for me because I’m an only child. My grandparents are the ones that live there. It is nice to get to see them and catch up with them.
Everyone gets up there around 11 o’ clock. It is neat because everyone brings something to contribute to for lunch. We all sit around in the living room and catch up on what is going on with everyone in there life. It is mainly the adults talking about all the gossip that has happen in town that week. The little kids will be in other living room watch a TV show on Disney. The older kids will be listening to what the adults are talking about, and having side conversation about that they did that week, or how their summer is going. It is great to have everyone together in one place. Usually in the background there will be a TV on with a baseball game or a golf game going on. It would not be a day at the lake without some conversation in detail about some hockey matter. I say that because out of my 20 cousins 15 of play hockey. That is where is can get a little heated. It is all in good fun though; no one takes it to heart.
After lunch it is time to go down to lake. Once down there that is when the good times begin. The little kids will go out to the sand bar and play out there with one of the dad selected to go out there; which is usually Uncle Kenny, because he is still the biggest kid out of any of us. The other adults will sit on the pontoon or on land with grandpa and grandma and talk with them. For the kids you can find them in the sand bar or on the boat tubing, wakeboarding, or knee boarding. I love to go wakeboarding, and that is just me and my older cousin Carl. Carl is the one that drive the boat when we go tubing or wakeboarding, because it’s his boat he got for high school graduation gift. You can find some of the little ones up on shore making waterfalls in the sand pit right by our pier. I think that is a tradition, because every grandchild has had a phase of making waterfalls in the sand pit.
I love going to the cottage on Sundays; because it just gives me that family value that is good to have. I mean how many families can say that they get six brothers and sisters together with their kids once a week and have a good time. There are many reason why this is my favorite childhood memory. Here are just a couple, because if I told you all of them just from the lake I would have a novel to tell you. The cottage is one of my favorite places to go. Now that I’m older I understand that this is something a lot of families don’t do. So I hope when I have kids that my cousins and I still keep this tradition going.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

My Choice

So for this blog entry we get to pick what topic we want to write about. When Sheila told us that, I was really excited. Awesome I finally get to choose what I want to write about. This task however was not as simple as thought it was going to. As I sit in my room looking around trying to think of something to write about. I keep drawing blanks. After spending sometime looking around my room, listen to the Dave Matthews Band, and surfing the web I finally got it. As I was looking around my room my hockey sticks caught the corner of my eye. I will write about my past time as a child; Playing pond hockey.
Playing pond hockey as a child was the only thing I did in my free time. In between school, homework, hockey practice, and traveling the state on the weekend to play hockey, it was pond hockey. Every since I was a little kid I always had my own rink in my backyard. I would say from the age of four all the way till I was thirteen when I grew too big to skate on it. I can remember my dad in the fall putting up the boards and lights. He would also get up an hour early in the morning just to go out and water the rink, so I would have a nice smooth sheet of ice to skate on. I didn’t care how cold it was outside I would go skate for hours on end. I would get home from school, put my skates on, and skate till supper. Then after supper go out and skate again till it was time for bed. I didn’t care if I was skating by myself which happened most of the time since I am an only child. I was in my own little world and nothing else mattered.
Now that I’m 21, I still find myself going back to my childhood. I go down to the park by the Loggers field and skating for hours, and it still doesn’t matter if anyone else is there or how cold it is outside. Because it is place where I can forget what is going on in my life and just get lost in the moment. I love going down there and seeing little kids. They remind me of myself at that age and sometimes I will play a little pickup game with them. It brings me back to my childhood. That is why hockey is such an important aspect of my life. No matter how old I get “it’s always a great day for hockey” said by the famous Bob Johnson, former Wisconsin Badgers hockey coach.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Ted Response

First, I would like to say that this is a pretty cool thing they are doing for the young. The one thing that stuck in my head was something he said in the beginning about how they let the kids "pick up sticks, hammers, and other dangerous things." Another thing that he said on the same topic was that they are trusted not to hurt themselves or the other people around them.

I like this concept for a couple of different reasons. The first is the kids are being treated as an adult and are being trusted with "big boy tools." I think that a child will take that as "wow; they trust me to use these tools." I think a child will see this as a big deal, to be given that trust. It gives them self confidence to do things on their own, instead of having people always telling them how to act and do things. This way they can new try things on their own and not have to worry if they are doing things the right or wrong way.

This camp also gives them the tools they will need to be successful in life. What I mean is that someone is not always going to tell them what to do for their whole life. This camp teaches them independence at an early age. It will give them the life skills that they will need to be functional in society. Also it will make them less likely to be dependent on someone to help them with things.