Ahhhhh

Well, day camp is over...and now I'm trying to round up kids for the parade to the south of us...and then it will be getting ready for horse camp in a couple weeks...and then I'm sure there will be something else pressing I will have to do. Hmmm, if I had a real job that earned real money, I would probably not be as busy and my pockets would be lined...

Day camp pictures in no particular order.....


All of the new first graders and their parents. Do you see the second "baby" tiger???

Some of the kids milking the cow. Our niece drew the face...as she was saying she didn't really know what a cows face looked like. Hmmm, well she did a lot better than I could have!!

Here is H with his new best friend on Thursday. By Friday I don't think the big tiger was anybodies friend. It was soooo warm and those kids were just drenched with sweat when the crawled out of the suit to pass it to the next unsuspecting kid. Ewwww!!

Okay, should have taken the picture of the gold panning earlier...when the water was still water. Our niece is the girl in the picture.

So, I think day camp was a success. Last year we had 85 kids, 15 of which we poached from the district to the south of us. This year the other district demanded their 15 kids back and we still had 96 kids for the whole week plus about a dozen 1st graders that came for just the day.

We did a pretty good job sticking with our western theme. Of course the BB's, archery and fishing fit right in already. Then we had Native American craft projects in the sweatlodge. On Wednesday everyone made butter while the retired prison warden/cop told stories about "Indians eating her grandpa's dog". We found someone to go into the woods and gather about 40 branches that the webelos could use for walking sticks. That made an awesome project for then to earn their whittling chip card as well as give them something to pack on their hike to the fort on Thursday. And on Friday we did the egg drop from the CG helicopter...W's broke this year. After the retrieval of the eggs, all the scouts participated in the "wide game" which I found out is just a cool name for a bunch of stations to rotate through. They had several sports, some crafts, leather working, bubble gum blowing...I think hands down the biggest hits were the cow milking, gold panning and armpit fudge. (and yes, the gold pans are from our trip down from AK, and there is a very unflattering photo of me in extra tuff's, maternity shorts and top, squatting in a creek panning for gold at about 5mos pregnant...but I'll never admit it...)

Our niece came down to help out for the whole week with camp. I think she had a good time, except for the day she was sick and stayed home. Of course that was they day her group did the hike to the fort and back, about 8 or so miles, so was she really sick??? Yes, she was. Anyway, when her group got back from the hike I spotted them just laying around looking all exhausted and told them they needed to find their leader. They informed me that their "good leader" wasn't there today and they had some other guy....which happened to be D and the dad of one of the other boys. Too funny. Anyway, it sounds like there may be some paid positions with some of the camps that run several weeks closer to where she lives. Our district guy got her contact information and told her she basically needed to decide if she wanted to be home at night or wanted to spend the night at camp. Pretty cool. Not only will she pick up some extra change, she can get some good experience to put on a resume for teaching in the fall.

Anyway, I am glad to say that for the most part we are totally done with day camp. We do still need to take some thank you's out to the base for all the hard work they did setting things up for us. One of the guys has informed us his new favorite cookie is my great grandmothers banana cookies. So, I guess I'll be doing some baking. It's going to be hard not to try to start planning stuff for next year right away. The theme next year is supposed to be Safari, but since we have ours on a military base we might be allowed to through an Army theme in every so often just for kicks. Hmmm, how to fit armpit fudge into either of those themes....

So, I don't know what we are doing for the 4th yet. Our scouts always do the parade to the south of us, but other than that...We have always headed up to the pier to watch the fireworks with my cousins, but this year we might head south to the beach instead. (It would sure be easier to turn right onto our road instead of having to wait for a break to make the left across the highway like we usually do...) I'm sure we will eat a bunch of unhealthy snacky stuff. You could almost bet that we will explode some stuff in the driveway. And it's almost a guarantee that I will show W again how to gently lower the toilet seat onto those pop it things to "surprise" the next unsuspecting person. Of course that works better when you have a higher ratio of women around. D will be working that day...but he's figuring he will be on overtime almost the whole day plus holiday pay. At that point the longer he works, the better.

Anyway, hope everyone has a safe and happy 4th.