Making A Fire and Doing the Dishes Outdoors

 Making fires fascinates me! I love setting it up and making sure it doesn't go out. I've learned to make the Tepee Fire, the Crisscross Fire, and the Star Fire. This Summer I actually made a fire with flint. It was the first time I had made a fire without matches! I now know how to set up a safe fire, start a fire, and extinguish a fire. Some may say I'm a fire-bug but I'm certainly not the only one!

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This Summer tragedy struck my family. Our kitchen sink broke. It would not drain so it was flooded with gross water and it stunk. My dad thought he could fix it so for a week we went without a sink or a dishwasher. Instead we washed out dishes outside. This was our process:

Me: Scrub the dishes in a bucket and then pass it on to mom

Mom: Quality control and rewashing the dishes, pass it on to Stef

Stef: Rinse the dishes off with a hose (and spray me every single time) and then hand it to Josh.

Josh: Dry the dishes and put it away

This process happened everyday for a week. My younger siblings only had to help put dishes away. It was a family affair everyday. At the time it seemed to be a huge pain, but looking back I see that we were able to bond together while splashing in the water while scrubbing dishes. We talked, discussed things that were bothering us in our lives, and really came together to make the best out of a bad situation. I laugh now when I look back on those hot summer days, while other kids were inside playing video games, my family was outside cleaning dishes until we saw the sunset. I now see that it was an awesome experience.

-Lauren