Hale's Happenings: Stay Camp 2012-- Day 1

Ahhhh, summertime is full of warm summer time activities.....swimming, summer walks, catching lightening bugs, gardening, camping, hiking, mowing business in full swing, and of course....summer camp. Connor is off for his scout camp this week, which means it's time for our stay-cation type camp. Delaney remembered the fun we had with this "summer camp" here-at-home from 2 years ago...and she wanted to make sure we did it again this year....I was happy to oblige.

To kick off our first day we took a 2 mile walk....one mile there...time to play and have a picnic breakfast...then a mile back to the car. We were joined by our friends the Walkers. Delaney and Grace get along quite well, as does Liam with Marshall.

Mmmmm, a yummy morning picnic breakfast!

They all had fun climbing around...Liam was particularly excited to come play on the bridge.

Cailin had fun too....especially on the slide.

Cailin's thoughts: "Uhh, it was sorta fun, but not really." Okay then....the thoughts of an eleven year old, pre teen girl. Sheesh!

We had a craft planned for the day and we needed to gather lots of sticks...on the way back to the car they had fun finding sticks...

....and this cute little toad.

Back home for summer school fun with the Brame family. We shared a 'campish' like lunch, PB and J sandwiches and pigs in a blanket....funny just having a "camp" mindset makes a simple lunch seem more fun.

After lunch we headed over to the Walker's home to make our craft of the day--stick vases.

After spending the previous week dog sitting for the Walker's Cailin fell in love with their dogs!...She didn't want to make a craft, she came along for time to play with Ginger and Cricket.

We still needed more sticks. lucky for us they had many trees in their yard which provided all our stick gathering needs!

To make the vases, we took an old spaghetti jar (or plastic peanut butter jar would work) and put rubber bands one inch from the top and bottom. We then tuck the sticks that have been broken or snipped to about an inch longer than the jar, under the rubber bands. They kind of rejected the part about making the sticks uniform in size, and went with their creative side and created an eclectic look instead.

I was quite impressed with how well this craft kept Liam and Marshall's attention. Liam filled his entirely on his own. This craft was simple enough and engaging enough for him too!!

It was also alluring to Cailin, as she decided to join in the crafting moment.

The finished product....(L to R) Delaney, Liam, Cailin

Afterwards, they wanted to fill their jars with beautiful flowers...courtesy of the neighbor next door. Thank goodness they don't care if the kids pick their day lilies.

After a quick trip to Dollar Tree for a scrumptious ice cream treat and supplies for the rest of the week, we headed back home. I took a quick nap {you really can't nap very well with two little one sitting on top of you}...but it was a need break. Now back to "camp". We made tin foil dinners.

Ryan joined us for this one....his meal consisted of only potatoes a'la tater tots.

Cooking them on the grill....

....and eating outside (and sharing with the cats, bugs and what ever else was around). Poor Delaney, after so much playing in crummy shoes she developed some shin splints...they hurt her quite a bit, but once the motrin and rice pack kicked in she was fine.