Scout Camp

Finn and Connor....the rest of the troop are out and about!

This year at scout camp has caused me to seriously revise my thoughts about camping. My young men's president visited us one evening and gave these words of revelation. "If camping is so great, why are all the bugs trying to get inside?" Still, it was definitely much better than last year. I won't go into details but I'll just say that last year stunk. This year, the bees renewed their campaign against my feet. About 3 years ago, I

suffered a summer in which the bees were continually attacking my feet. this year, they have begun again.
Now, we've just had the bad things-- now for some good. We played mafia (a great game) almost every night. I got three merit badges and two partials. We also made a game to play in the creek but due to bee stings, I didn't get to do that much.
                                                       Connor

Stay Camp 2012-- Day 4.....our last day!

Day four....S'more fun please!!  We worked on this solar oven to make s'mores.

The chocolate melted quite quickly, whereas, the marshmallow took much longer.  Because we had to leave for our other activities of the day, we choose eat the chocolate alone from the marshmallow...but this happy guy loved it either way!

Brianne had speech and physical therapy in the morning.  After her nap we headed off to the library for an activity from Claytor Lake state rangers on Bats.  They made these cute bats from a copy of their hands.

Afterwards, we headed off to our friends the Mattsons.  Here the kids made soy based candles.  They got to pick their colors, scents and decorate the the tin can the wax was poured into.  They smell great and

above is the finished product, cooling.

The Mattson's now have chickens...and they were all excited to see and feed these clucking critters.  Brianne, my animal hating child, seemed to be enthralled with them.  Maybe it's because they are more her size, but she went after them....or maybe she was just going after their bread crumbs..who knows, whatever the case may be, she didn't seem bothered by them.

Camp just isn't camp without a campfire...even though is was scorching hot and incredibly humid, we braved the elements and roasted hot dogs for dinner, topped with marshmallows, complete with more s'mores toppings for desert.

We had a great time....thanks Mattson family for a wonderful ending to our Stay-camp adventures!  Till next year--Ta ta!, adios! and tchuss (informal way of saying goodbye in German).

Stay Camp 2012-- Day 3

Wednesday morning breakfast--omelets in a bag.  Last time this was a hit!  Not so much this year.   Cailin is definitively  my child.  Food is gross if it's slightly under cooked (or appears to be, as the case for this food item), fatty (as in meat....while growing up, my Dad claimed he could eat a meal off of what I left...I think he could eat a meal from Cailin's discards too :)  smells funny, or is just gross.  She has hit that phase in life...and she's determined that omelets in a bag are gross looking, so they must taste gross too.

However, these two didn't think so, and loved the idea of omelets in a bag.

We headed off to another creek today....Wildwood.  We liked Carter's park creek better, but it's to far for most of our friends to join us there so we played here in Wildwood today.  They had fun looking for crawdad's, water spiders, little fish and salamanders.  My friend Becky Robinette comes to Brianne's therapy every week (one day she wants to work in this field).  So every chance she gets she works with her or her motor and oral skills.  Playing with bubbles will hopefully get her to form her mouth correctly so she can speak well.

Macy and Liam liked to play with this net and throw large rocks.  They squealed with delight at the large splashes the rocks made.

Off to search for more treasures....

Stopping by for a bite to eat.  The exploreres spent most of their time upstream playing.

We spent the evening with Connor at Camp Altamons.  It was great to see him....and help him feel better from a bee sting that had turned his foot flaming red and twice it's size..  (More on that later).

We enjoyed a yummy pulled pork dinner with slaw, potato salad, and baked beans.  For dessert, every year they have a cobbler baking contest....mmmmmm, I think I liked the blueberry chocolate one best...the licorice one was my least favorite--just a little too gross.

Stay Camp 2012-- Day 2

A morning breakfast of monkey bread.  I know Delaney doesn't look like she's happy here, however, she was humming and singing softly to herself as she was preparing the dough.
She's loved all this "cammpy fun" that we've been doing....all of it the crafts, cooking, outings and...well that's it really, she's not that fond of the camp clean-up type chores.   Liam's enjoying this too....especially helping in the kitchen with food preparation part.

Today's scheduled events:  Meet up with the Morgan family
                                          Free movie at Wytheville....we'll see HOP.
                                           Picnic lunch and play in the creek at Carter's Park in Wytheville.
                                           Craft:  leaf imprint journals
                                 then,  mowing with Ryan and Cailin ....some things just can't be put off for a whole week  :)

Bri absolutely LOVED getting wet and playing in the water.  She kept scooching deeper and deeper into the creek.

There was one area that had a bit of rapids....this was a favorite place for these girls to play.

Further down the stream there was a murky, muddy spot that they all found.  If they weren't careful, it would suck them in and they'd be stuck!  But they had great fun playing in the mud!

It was a beautiful day.  The humidity of the past few days was gone and it wasn't as hot, as it previously had been.  In fact, the water was so cold that we all had to warm ourselves from time to time.  Brianne turned a bit purple at one point.  She wasn't happy that I pulled her out, but soon found other things to entertain her with.  The Morgan's brought a parachutte to play with... she loved shaking it and joining in that fun too.        

Our craft of the day entailed pounding leaves and flowers with a rock between two pieces of fabric.  This pounding allowed that pigment from the flowers and the chlorophyll of the leaves to be left of the the fabric. Delaney and Liam had fun experimenting and finding out which flower or leaf left the best imprint.  Pansies turned out the best!   I've discovered that Cailin really doesn't like crafting.  But loves to write, her creativity comes out in this way!!

This was all we accomplished on Tuesday.  We covered the journals in fabric on Wednesday.

The finished product!    
Ryan, Cailin and I headed off to mow the church yard, while the younger ones played at Granny and Papa's house.  It was a pleasant evening.