Dam It!

On Father's Day, we moved up Sunday dinner to Sunday brunch. This worked well as it was pretty durn hot out and the children were able to spend the day running between the pool and the beach. We call it the beach, but really it's a dump truck load of sand surrounded by a frame of large boulders, and it isn't on the shore of any water. But we call it the beach anyway because we like to.

The children collaborated on an ongoing project that has kept them busy for days now. See the green garden hose on the left? The kids were initially using it to dampen the sand so they could build things. Eventually, it sparked the "Dam It!" Project.

Here you see the kids working on their dam. It's in the back. See how they are building up a burm?

It's really hard to get a photo of, but I will try to explain. So they built up their dam in an attempt to make a lake. Their dam was made of sand. When they turned on the hose, it, of course, went right through the sand walls of the dam. And the children all shouted at one another: "Dam it! Dam it!" This is not to be confused with the inappropriate "Dammit!" They were shouting it as a command, with "dam" as a verb. Get it? Anyhoo, they turned off the hose and rebuilt the dam, this time higher. And, of course, the results were the same. The tall sand burm was washed into Grandma's garden. The adults finally offered some advice: build the dam out of something stronger than sand. Grandpa also had some advice: return all of the sand to the beach before turning on the hose again. This was less advice and more an order. They lost a LOT of sand when the dam broke.

With all of the shouts of "dam it!", some grown up thought it would be funny to name it Dam it Dam. Sadly, the name has stuck, and the children have spent the week saying things like, "When we're done practicing our cannonballs, do you want to go work on Dam it Dam?" Yep. I can't wait for them to tell their teachers how they spent their summer...