Camp Thanks A Lot

Emily has been a Girl Scout for several years, but this past cookie seasons she sold her all time high and sold enough to go to the special overnight camp called Camp Thanks A Lot. A parent has to attend as well, so I went with her.

Since we only have one car right now, Todd drove us to Camp Pisgah so he could have the car while we were gone. After he left, we got signed in, got Emily signed up for an archery class and then went to take some of our stuff to our cabin. We were told the rest would be taken up for us We were assigned to the Misty Mountain area and we could pick whatever cabin in we wanted. We picked the closest one and got changed into our swim suits.

There wasn't a lot of time before lunch so we found the dining hall and just hung out until lunch was served. Since we were one of the first people in there, we finished quickly and went to go swimming in the lake.

We had to swim in the lake because the pool was closed. Since it was just a one day/night camp, they made everyone wear life jackets to swim because there wasn't time to give everyone swim tests. We were the first ones in, and Emily was a little unsure at first but then just swam and swam. The water was rather cold though, but I swam with her too.

After a bit, we had to get out because it was Emily's archery time. The archery range was pretty close to where we were swimming in the lake so it didn't take us long to get there. Emily took a couple of turns - she tried but her arrows didn't get near the target. It was her first time ever shooting a bow though and she had fun.

She dragged me back to the lake to swim some more. At this point, I was starting not to feel very good. I was having a cramping in my side. I thought I may be ovulating but it was actually a kidney stone. That would be a saga that would take over my summer, but I'll cover that in future posts.

I sat on the deck and took pictures of Em while she swam. There were other activities going on, but she wasn't interested. She wanted to swim, and swim, and swim. After a while though, she got out and we headed back to the cabin, where our stuff had been brought to us. I was surprised that they knew what cabin we had picked.

We went to the camp store and I attempted to buy Emily a small stuffy and a patch, but their credit card reader wouldn't read my card for some reason. If we go back next year, I'll definitely bring cash. They also had a slip and slide set up right next to where the camp store was, and Emily took a few

turns.

My kid though, isn't great at the slip and slide. First couple of times, she went too slow and then had to push herself down. The last time, she ran to slide but ended up going down at a weird angle and hurt herself a little.

We went back to the cabin and changed, then went to dinner. I was not able to eat dinner because the pain in my side was getting really bad. I hadn't thought to bring any pain medicine with me, so I asked one of the counselors if I could get some ibuprofen.  It took a bit because she had to go get the key for the nurse's station but I got some medicine. After taking it, I felt a little better. Dinner was still going on so we went back and I ate a little.

I had to convince Emily to go to the campfire singalong, but she went and we sang along. She didn't

want to stick around when the songs started getting slower since the sun was setting. We missed out on smores because of that, and she was a little bummed.

We went back to our cabin, and we had several cabinmates. The girls in our cabin were all younger than Emily but she hung out with them some. But she had brought some books so she was happy to hang out in the top bunk and read until we did lights out.

Now the area we were in, had a circle of four or five cabins with a fire pit in between. Some of the other parents had started a campfire out there, which was fine. Our cabin did lights out about 10 pm, but the people outside were extremely noisy. Yelling kids, and we could hear the parents talking as if they were right next to us. This didn't phase Emily at all, she conked right out. Probably because of all the swimming.

But one of our cabinmates was a little girl who kept complaining to her mom that she couldn't sleep because of the noise. I wasn't sleeping at that point either, mostly because I still wasn't feeling great. But I was just playing on my phone, waiting for the ruckus outside to settle down. But that other mom went out several times to ask the others to quiet down, finally they did after a while.

I slept poorly. Partly because of the kidney stone and partly because my old body doesn't handle camp mattresses very well anymore. One of the other moms had brought a twin blow up bed to put on her bunk - I need to do that if we go next year!

We awoke the next morning and I was really sick. I spent a good deal of time in the bathroom thinking I was going to start throwing up. While I was in there, my sweet child actually packed up 95% of our stuff! I was really proud of her.

I managed to keep down some more medicine and we got breakfast where Emily ate about a whole pig's worth of bacon. We then hauled our stuff down the hill to wait for Todd to arrive. He got there sooner than I thought he would, thankfully, and was able to buy Emily her stuffed animal and her patch so she was very happy.

All in all, it was fun... for Emily. I had bits of fun here and there, but mostly I was sick. But I'm glad we went. Emily worked very hard to sell enough cookies to get to go, and she had a blast!