Since I had the summer off, I decided to start a one-man Summer Camp for Malachy.  He dubbed me “Camp Dad,” and he dubbed himself, “Camp Son.”  Instead of spending over a grand and putting him in a summer program, I thought to myself, “Wait, I CAN DO THIS!”  We would have more flexibility in schedule.  We could go on a Family trip and do other fun things together.  Malachy LOVED the idea. 😉

His first request was to have a campfire and roasted marshmallows.  I don’t know what possessed me to promise him one.  As July drew near, he got more and more excited about the idea of a campfire and marshmallows.   I started to fret, and thought to myself, “How are we going to do this in the City?”  A few days before our Camp was supposed to take off, I actually did a Google Search for Campfire in Manhattan, Camfire in NYC.  Guess what?  I found one!  I found something that said, “Beach Campfire!”  It was going to happen on July 2 at Jacob Riis Park, from 7:30pm-9:30pm.  I asked Shien and she said, “Sure!”  Still, I thought, maybe it was going to be a big fire, and we wouldn’t be able to toast marshmallows.  We kept telling Malachy that if it didn’t happen at the beach, we  would toast it at home by candlelight.

I called a couple of days in advance just to make sure it was for real.  I got the car from Staten Island, and we went after dinner.  As usual, I relied too heavily on GPS.  It took us through local traffic, and I was so confused because it said it was in Queens online, and we were driving through local traffic in Brooklyn.  I thought it was going to take us to the wrong place.  Anyways, when we got there, NO CAMPFIRE!  I kept figuring it was the July 4th weekend, and that they just decided to cancel it.  There were a few people around, and we walked around the beach for a little bit and decided to stay just a short while and then go home… 🙁

I tried calling the number a couple of times that I had called 2 days earlier.  No answer.  I kept looking far off in the distance, and saw a group of people.  I decided I had to check it out to see if that could possibly be it.  IT WAS!  I couldn’t run back to tell them, because it’s SO HARD to walk fast in the sand.  I called PoPo, and told her the great news.  Malachy was SO excited! 🙂  He got to have his roasted marshmallows and even a hot dog!  There was some even some campfire singing; the weather couldn’t have been more perfect.  Unbelievable!  Another thing I could never have imagined.  A campfire in NYC, at the beach!  SO COOL! 😉