Chapter 2: Friday, Finding Interests
The bells on the large bell tower by the dining hall rang out as a wake-up call at 0700. Most of the kids were already awake as were the adults. Jimmy had to get Tori out of her bed, but she didn't fight getting up. Each one remembered to grab a backpack for towels, swimsuits, and carrying any items made during the day's activities.
Everyone was dressed and ready to head to breakfast by 0730. The dining hall was in a different direction from the previous night's bonfire; the paved paths were easier to navigate to get the food. At the dining hall, the family found their tables under a giant eagle hanging from the rafters of the open-air mess hall. Each table sat six people; the adults all sat at one and let the kids sort out themselves at the other two tables.
Breakfast was a serve-yourself buffet with scrambled eggs, biscuits, bacon, ham, sausage, toast, hash-browns, cereal, and various fruits. The beverage bar had juices, milk, coffee, and tea. Ziva, Delilah, and Breena watched their 'boys' fill their plates with heaping amounts of food.
"I swear Tony, Tim, and Jimmy feel a need to rival the growing boys in eating food," Ziva chuckled as Jimmy passed by with two plates piled high. "They seem to forget that they are no longer growing upwards, only outwards."
Dee watched John and Anthony sit at what was soon becoming the boys' table for the family. "There are days that I would almost guarantee that John got some DiNozzo food genes if it weren't for the fact that I gave birth to that child."
Breena nodded towards LJ, "LJ is going to out-eat them all one of these days. He's going to be your tallest adult, Ziva. Look at him next to Charles, they are almost the same height!"
"Ima, they've posted the sign-up pages for today's activities; can we go online to sign up now?" Tali and Tori came over to the adults' table. "Please?" The teen motioned to the tablet in the center of the table in front of Delilah.
Tony sat next to Ziva with his two plates of food, "I thought we listed the activities we wanted in a preferential list and then waited until the meal was over to get our schedules for the day?"
"You are correct," she replied with a grin. "I think the girls want to get their lists entered into the site." She handed the tablet to the two teens who carried the device to their table. "Remember to share with your brothers also!" she called after them.
Tori gave a thumbs' up gesture as she and Tali looked over the list of activities for their age group. Both were especially interested in any activity that did not require a parent or other family adult present.
By the time the meal was over, all nine kids and the six adults had made selections. Three of five of LJ's activities required an adult to be with him. Tony and Ziva each took one of the activities, and Tim agreed to be the youngster's adult for the third one.
Riv and Beth had a skeet-shooting activity that required an adult; Ziva agreed to go with the two. By the time the large bells outside the dining hall rang for the campers to head out to their first activities of the day, schedules were ready for all, printed on a card that was inserted in a waterproof pouch so it could be carried all day as a reference.
LJ and Tony headed to the lake to learn to sail the Sunfish sailboats. Ziva and Charles headed to the rock-climbing wall. Tali, Tori, and Katie's first activity was canoeing, while Anthony went off in the direction of the basketball court. Delilah and Breena started their day with the wildflower hike. Tim, John, and Rivka followed the group for the robotics building double-session.
Beth and Jimmy were delighted to have the animal-centered hike as their initial activity. When their group came across a mouse skeleton, Jimmy showed his niece the various parts of the bone structure. Others listened to his explanations, and one of the teen boys in the group asked Jimmy how he knew about the bones.
"I'm a medical examiner," he replied.
Beth grinned at her uncle, "Uncle Jimmy does autopsies on dead people to solve crimes."
"Oh…" several of the others backed away slightly. Jimmy and Beth smirked at each other; the whole family was accustomed to similar reactions from strangers when the subject of Dr. Palmer's job came up.
The second activity of the morning found all five girls with Breena and Delilah in a jewelry-making class. Each made a beaded bracelet with various charms attached. Jimmy and Charles attended a chess group; both won against their opponents easily.
LJ and Ziva had fun at the archery range, even though some of the participants were a bit put out by Ziva's skills with the bow and arrow. Her three rounds all had groupings in the center of the target. LJ got the hang of shooting quickly and had a grouping at the outer edge of the bulls' eye in his last round.
Tony joined Anthony at the basketball court; the pick-up game had father and son on opposing teams. Although the game was supposed to be fun, the players started getting rather competitive when the score was tied with only a few minutes of the session remaining. Anthony was fouled and stepped up to the free throw line.
"This could win it for us, Abba," the pre-teen grinned at his father. "When I make these two free-throws, my team will be three points ahead of yours."
Tony smirked, "Still enough time for a three-pointer when I get the ball after your second throw, kiddo."
Anthony set up his shot, and the ball swished through the net, "We shall see…" He lined up his second throw; another point added to his side.
One of the others on Tony's team inbounded the ball. Tony dribbled to center court and looked around; he knew the clock was almost at zero. One of his teammates waved his arms in the far corner, but the man was surrounded by others. Tony looked over at the basketball goal. It was a long center-court shot, one he hadn't attempted in years. 'What the heck?' he thought and let the ball fly. The others watched as the basketball arced towards the net; Tony held his breath. He almost closed his eyes; he didn't want to see the outcome if it missed…
"WHOA!" several others yelled out as the ball passed through the hoop and net easily with a swish. "Incredible shot!"
Anthony puffed up a bit as the others on both teams congratulated his father on the shot. "That's my Abba; played for Ohio State Buckeyes!"
The bells outside the dining hall tolled to bring the campers in for lunch. The DiNozzos, McGees, and Palmers came in from all directions. The girls showed off their handmade bracelets. Ziva shared pictures of Charles on the climbing wall with Jimmy and Breena.
"Thanks for being his adult companion," Breena smiled at the image on Ziva's phone. "There is no way either Jimmy or I would have been climbing with him. I just love the shot you got near the top; his grin says it all."
Jimmy nodded agreement, "Yeah, thanks, Ziva. This is so great that we can share activities with any of the kids. Beth and I had a blast on the animal hike…"
"Yep, Ima, we found a mouse skeleton and Uncle Jimmy told me about all of the bones! The others listened to him explain the skeletal structure also," Beth moved by her uncle as he pulled up some pictures on his phone screen. "See, that's the skull, and the spine with its vertebrae…" she pointed out the various parts of the mouse skeleton.
The family swapped stories about the morning sessions over lunch, with Tony showing all of them the video of LJ learning to sail the Sunfish. Tim shared pictures and video clips of John and Rivka building a robotic arm and getting it to pick up a small box-shape. Then they added wheels to make it moveable, which Tim also captured on video.
"The kids had a blast with the robotics," he mentioned to the other adults.
Tony softly elbowed his brother of the heart, "And the 'big kid' did as well…"
"Yeah, I did," Tim smirked. "But it was even more fun watching the two of them work as a team to build their robot. Those kids think alike!"
Anthony stopped next to his Abba with his third plateful of spaghetti and meatballs. "This is good spaghetti, but no where near as good as yours, Abba."
Tony turned to his older son, "Buttering me up to ask for something?" He winked at the twelve-year-old.
"Um, no… well, yes…" Anthony grinned and finally made his request. "Are you still gonna go with me to the jewelry making class?" he lowered his voice so the others wouldn't overhear.
"Uh-huh," Tony spoke quietly in reply. "Still on the D-L?" When the boy nodded, Tony continued, "Did you see the bracelets the girls and Aunt Dee and Aunt Breena made? Now we gotta think of something else for Katie and Ima…"
"I saw. Rats, I wanted to make a bracelet. You could make earrings for Ima; I saw a bunch of girls come out of the crafts cabin with earrings that they'd made. Maybe I'll go with the bracelet anyhow." Anthony noticed Katie returning with desserts, so he moved back to his seat to finish his third helping of food.
Ziva glanced at her schedule card, "We have three sessions this afternoon; anyone else have the women's canoeing session second?"
"I do," Delilah commented. "We can pair up if you want."
"Yes, I was hoping there would be someone from our family with me. I think we will have fun."
The bells signaled the time to head to the first session of the afternoon. Tony and Anthony headed to the crafts cabin for the jewelry-making class. Breena, Jimmy, Rivka, Beth, and Charles went down the path to the lake for a swimming session. Tali, Tori, LJ, Ziva, Tim, and Katie followed the path to the zipline activity. Delilah rolled her chair to the small clearing next to the dining hall for the yoga and meditation class. She was surprised to see her son sitting among the others already there.
"Hey, Mom!" John waved at his mother. "It's okay; you can come sit by me."
In the crafts cabin, Anthony found the beads and parts he wanted to make a bracelet for his best friend, Katie. He knew she loved the color pink and chose mostly pink beads, although he also had a few orange ones to include his favorite color. The preteen took his pieces, findings, and beads to one of the worktables to assemble his surprise gift.
Tony perused the choices for making an item of jewelry in the one-hour session. He noticed a pair of silver feather charms and some tiny golden-colored and red glass beads. He found beading wire and a pair of fish-hook earring wires to make earrings for Ziva. As he was gathering the supplies in his tray, another camper and her unruly child bumped into him, sending his beads scattering on the cabin floor.
'Shit…' Tony tried to gather all the beads, but some of them were rather difficult to see on the wood floor. Anthony noticed his Abba on his knees and ran over to help.
"Here are a few more," the son dropped about a dozen of the tiny beads into the white tray that Tony had put his supplies.
Tony counted the beads, "Only one missing, one of the golden ones… I can just get another from the tray of beads." He put his hand on the floor to help himself stand up and put it on the missing bead. "Never mind, found it!" he held up his hand with the tiny piece of glass stuck to his palm. He brushed the bead into the tray with a grin.
"Find a workstation away from those two bulls in a china shop," Anthony winked to his father. "And if you need any help, let me know."
"I don't need help, thank you very much. I am going to make these earrings for your Ima all by myself."
Anthony snorted as he chuckled, "Ha! Famous last words, Abba!" The boy returned to work on the bracelet he was assembling.
Tony cut a piece of beading wire to fasten to the feather charm; he created the loop for the eye at the top of the charm, and wrapped the end of the wire around to form the bottom of the portion to be beaded. Next up was to slide the beads onto the wire in a pattern. He moved beads around until he found a sequence that was pleasing to the eye. He tried to slide the first bead on the wire.
After several attempts that failed, he relented and pulled his reading glasses from his pocket. He managed to feed the wire through two of the beads, even though he really could not see the holes in the beads. Anthony looked over at his Abba; he could tell the man was getting frustrated, but said nothing. Abba would ask for help when he was desperate!
Tony slowly made progress with the beads, finally getting them on the drop wire. He put the end of the wire through the loop on the bottom of the earring hook and used needle-nose pliers to wrap the end of the wire around. He laid the completed earring on the white surface of the worktable and admired his handiwork.
He had the second bead wire ready to attach the wire to the fish-hook earring and looked around for the hook. He finally spotted it in the tray and reached for it. The beaded wire slipped from his fingers and spilled the beads onto the worktable surface.
"Aw crap!" he muttered as he lifted the almost empty wire from the table. Slowly, meticulously, determined not to ask for help, he managed to thread all the beads onto the wire again, checking and double-checking that he had the same pattern of colors as he went. Just as the bells rang out to signal time for the next session, Tony pushed the end of the wire through the eye on the earring hook and wrapped it with the pliers.
Anthony showed his Abba the finished bracelet, and admired the earrings that had been completed just in the nick of time. "Ima's gonna like those, especially since you made them for her."
"After all that aggravation and mishap, I sure hope she does!" Tony sighed as he put the extra supplies back and stacked his tray with the other empty ones. "And, no, you do not need to tell her the whole story…"
"Gotcha!" Anthony smirked as he headed off to his next session.
All of the family were involved in various activities at or around the lake for the second session of the afternoon. Some were learning how to stand-up paddleboard, others were learning to sail the Sunfish sailboats that Tony and LJ had been on in the morning, and several were in a free-swim session. Ziva and Dee were with about a dozen other women in the canoes.
As the pairs paddled around the lake, one of the women suggested a race. The others accepted the challenge and the race was on. Ziva and Delilah were half a canoe length behind the leaders, one of the women in that canoe was the one who challenged the others to the race.
"Think we can beat them, Ziva?" Dee called back to her sister of the heart.
"I know we can," Ziva replied. "Our strategy is to keep up with their pace until the final fifty to one hundred feet. Then we give it our all and pass them to be first over the finish line."
"Sounds like a plan," Delilah agreed as she dipped her paddle in the water.
The others around the lake soon noticed the women racing the canoes. Tony saw Ziva and Dee in the second-runner spot and called out to Tim who was paddling his board around quite well.
"Look at Zi and Dee; I wanna watch them make their move…"
"How do you know they are gonna make a move?" Tim had paddled over to Tony.
Tony laughed, "It's Ziva…"
By now the rest of the family had gathered to watch Ziva and Delilah. The two canoes were now almost side by side, the other canoes were well behind the leaders.
"Ready?" Ziva called to Dee. When the other woman nodded, the two gave it their all. Their canoe inched ahead of the other. When the two in the lead canoe noticed the challengers passing them, they too gave it all they had. Ziva and Delilah paddled harder and faster, pushing the canoe ahead by a full length.
On shore and in the shallow water, the family cheered for them. Ziva's competitiveness from her Mossad days kicked in and she found a reserve of energy she didn't know she had. She pressed harder and pushed her canoe almost two full lengths ahead to cross the finish line in first place.
"WOOOOO-HOOOOO!" the family members cheered and swarmed the canoe with Ziva and Delilah. The two women were dripping with sweat and breathing heavily, but grinning at the victory.
Jimmy held up his phone, "I got almost all of that last part on video! Congrats!"
"I'm going to be feeling that later," Dee rolled her shoulders as Ziva guided the canoe to the dock where Delilah's chair waited for them.
"We shall sleep well tonight," Ziva observed as she also rolled her shoulders to loosen the muscles some.
The family congratulated the pair a bit more as the bells tolled for the change to the final session of the afternoon and they scattered to the various sessions before dinner time.
