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!

Girl Scouts Vs. Boy Scouts

The Womanly Art of Leatherworking

Some of you may have heard the news that the Boy Scouts are now letting girls join. I really don't have an issue with this, it's up to the girl what organization she wants to join, since Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts aren't the only options.

What I have an issue with is the bad rap Girl Scouts gets from some people. I made the mistake of reading the comments on the post about this that was on the Boy Scouts Facebook page. Apparently, according to some people, Girl Scouts is about arts, crafts, learning how to be a housewife, and nothing outdoors. Which is so not true, at least for the troop that I'm a part of.

Emily has been a Girl Scout for three years now. We've gone camping every year (sometimes several times a year), we learn outdoor activities, hiking is a big thing in our troop and we are gearing up to do some awesome STEM stuff. In fact, our Juniors were making little robots last meeting.

Admittedly, our troop is awesome and yes, as a leader, I'm biased. But Girl Scouts is all about being girl led. Our girls have a say in what we do each year and what badges they want to earn. Our Brownies are working on their First Aid badge right now.

Yes, some troops may be more arts and crafts than outdoors. And if you don't like your local troop, join Boy Scouts or Campfire, or any other similar organization. And you can also start your own troop. Ours is only 4 years old.

Scouting is fun for both boys and girls. Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts both have advantages and flaws, but if you find a good troop it can be life changing!

Girl Scout Day at Chimney Rock

I try to do just about every Girl Scout activity that is offered through our troop because I know that Emily would enjoy it. So when Girl Scout Day at Chimney Rock was announced, I signed us up for the day activities and the camp out in the evening.

It was tent camping and I haven't tent camped since I was a teenager. I wasn't looking very forward to it but I loaded up our car and headed off.

We got there about 9 am and some of our troop was already there. Even though it was morning, it was already starting to get really hot. I had a small cooler in my car for our lunches and the chocolate for smores. I left it in there because we were going to do activities first.

There were a bunch of other troops. The event had been limited to 200 girls, I think, plus parents and siblings. We had a decent amount of people with our troop so Emily had a lot of friends to play with.

The first part of the day was doing different stations. We started at the "craft" which all the parents agreed was the lamest craft ever. Apparently ever year, Chimney Rock has a special animal they showcase. This year, the animal was the spider. So the craft was to make a spider web necklace.

But all it was, was that all the girls were given a piece of metal (about as thick as a small paperclip) and they were suppose to bend it to make it look like a spider web. Needless to say, nobodies looked like a spider web. Sadly the person leading the craft didn't give a whole lot of instructions.

Once we were done there, we went to the next station which was all about things animals leave behind. Tracks, poop, etc. This one was more interesting, though I missed some of it by going to the

restroom. But there was a fun activity at the end where they girls had to try and guess what an animal was by looking at its fake poop, tracks and then the skull. We had some form of plant eater.

Our next station was the snake station. The guy leading it was very into snakes, and told the girls about different venomous and non-venomous snakes. He had several of the non-venomous to show the girls, one of which that bit him! But at the end, he let the girls pet one of his snakes. Emily didn't though, she wasn't very into that.

Lastly was another station about animals. I honestly was starting to lose spoons as this point in the day so I didn't pay a ton of attention. But the ranger in charge had a tame possum that everyone could pet. Emily decided that she now wants a possum as a pet!

By this time, it was super hot out and it was lunch time. My car was like a hot box, but our lunches were still cool. Our troop had set up our chairs under some shade and we all ate. I didn't really want to get up after sitting in my comfy chair but next was the Jr. Ranger program.

All the girls who came to the event got a patch, but those who wanted to become Jr. Rangers got a 2nd patch and a certificate. Emily wanted to do that so we headed back to the main pavilion. They split the troops in two groups. Ours learned about trees first and how important they are for their oxygen but also for all the things we use that are made of wood.

Each troop then got to plant two seedling trees into cups that we were able to bring home with us. I'm not sure where our troop decided to plant our trees but it was a pretty neat thing that we were given those.

After that, we switched and the girls were given a talk about what it means to be a ranger. They were given their patches and certificates and got a picture with the ranger. Our troop leader took the patches so they can be awarded at our next awards ceremony.

Emily had wanted to try the climbing wall so we headed there next, along with one of her friends.

While the girls waited in the long time, I chatted with the troop leader who is a friend of mine. We stood in the shade because it was still so very hot.

Some of our troop hadn't done the Jr. Ranger program or the climbing wall and had gone up to the peak of Chimney Rock which apparently involves walking up 500 stairs. I'm glad that I hadn't done that for a variety of reasons.

After the climbing wall, we went back to where we were going to set up camp to relax. As we were sitting there, the sound of sirens filled the air. We never got the whole story beyond someone had gotten hurt on one of the waterfall trails. Our folks had to hike all the way down, because the shuttles weren't running but they made it back to camp.

Everyone who wasn't camping headed out and the rest of us set up our tents. Once the tents were set up, the girls moved from tent to tent as they played. While unpacking I realized that the marshmallows I had brought for smores had melted into one huge marshmallow. I hadn't even thought about them melting so they had just been in my car.

We lamented the marshmallow melting but also the fact that we didn't have a campfire. The parks had set up rings around the meadow where we were camping but there wasn't enough for each troop to have one. One wasn't near us so we went ahead and had dinner while trying to think of what we could do get a fire.

In the end, one of our moms went and asked the park ranger in charge if we could make our own fire ring. The ranger said 'sure', gave her big rocks to make the ring plus some fire wood. The girls got twigs and fallen branches to start the fire and soon we had our own roaring camp fire!

Thankfully another parent had brought marshmallows that weren't melted so we got to make smores. The girls were thrilled. As it got to be dusk, another troop invited ours over for a dance party. They

were playing music from their car and had glow necklaces they gave out. Emily had a great time getting her groove on!

It got darker and finally it was time to head to bed. Emily fell asleep right away but I got maybe two hours because I was extremely uncomfortable. In the middle of the night it started pouring, but thankfully we had borrowed a very good tent so we stayed dry.

In the morning, it was still raining on and off. I was exhausted and had a monster migraine. We packed up the car quickly, mostly because I had put everything we weren't sleeping with in the car the night before. We got home around 7 am and I took a shower and passed out.

While I didn't have a ton of fun, Emily did! She loved playing with her friends and petting a possum. Next year, we may do it again but we may not camp. We'll see!

The End of Summer

Even though it's still very hot out, the signs that summer is coming to an end are all around. My daughter starts school on Monday and a lot of kids are already back to school. Labor Day Weekend (aka Dragon Con) is next weekend and of course, September is only a few hours away.

This summer wasn't very exciting for us. We went to a few birthday parties and went swimming several times. We watched Star Wars in the park and went camping. But a lot of our summer was inside because of the heat and the thunderstorms.

I'm not a huge fan of summer. I'm either roasting or freezing. The weather has been crazy this year with a lot more extreme storms than usual. So I'm glad to see summer going away.

Of course, that's partly because we have a lot of exciting stuff coming up in the fall. Disney World mostly, but also Emily's birthday. We are also going to go to the Eliada Corn Maze with the Girl Scouts and of course, there is Halloween.

Even though it probably won't feel like Fall for a while, I'll be decking my halls with Halloween things as soon as we get home from Dragon Con. Mostly because I love my Halloween stuff but that means I can have it up longer since we'll be at Disney the first week in October.

I hope you all had a wonderful summer and have an equally great autumn season!

Camping with the Girl Scouts!

Hiking!

When Emily joined Girl Scouts at the beginning of the year, she was looking forward to two things the most. The first was getting badges, which she has gotten quite a few. And the other was to go camping.

Her troop was suppose to go camping in January but the weekend it was planned we had a really bad snowstorm. So it got postponed until this past weekend.

We got up early Saturday morning to make the trek to the campground. One of the girl scouts' dads works for the Boy Scouts and he has been rehabbing / building a boy scout camp so we went camping there.

The drive took nearly two hours, and we drove right up a mountain to get to the camp. After parking, hauling our stuff to the cabin and eating lunch, the fun began. The Boy Scouts did a flag ceremony where they raised the American flag and then the camp's flag. After we did the pledge of allegiance and the scouts did their pledges/promise we went our separate ways.

The girls and the parents (one of whom is our Daisy troop leader) headed off to hike on a trail that no-one has ever hiked before. I didn't make it very far before I realized that it was not a good idea for me to try to do this hike. I headed back to the cabin and read a book while they were hiking.

Once they got back, we all headed back to the beginning of the trail. Since this camp is a work in progress, our troop decided to do a service project. What we did was start to clear a path to making the hiking trail easier to hike.

The girls raked and hoed at the trail and got a decent way. Then they waked the part that they had cleared to pat it down. They were very proud of the work they did and they'll get an extra special patch for being some of the first people to do service projects to fix up the camp.

We had a few hours before the Boy Scouts were going to serve supper so the girls worked on their

Marshmallows!

skit and their song for the campfire. That didn't take too long so most of the parents relaxed in the cabin while the kids played right outside.

Supper was at 6 pm. We had spaghetti, garlic bread and salad. All that playing and hiking must have made Emily hungry because she ate a full plate of spaghetti and even had seconds. After everyone had their fill, we headed to the huge firepit. There was skits and songs, which was very fun. After it started to get dark, it was time to roast marshmallows!

The cabin we were staying in were not heated so several people had brought space heaters because it was pretty cold on Saturday. On our side of the cabin, we actually had two plugged in. We had a bit of excitement when all the lights went out on our side. Thankfully it was an easy fix and the girls passed out.

I didn't sleep great but I didn't really expect to. Emily slept all night but she was still tired in the morning. It was our turn to make breakfast so we headed to the main cabin to start cooking. I made up the scrambled eggs, the girls made the toast and there was also pancakes and sausage. It was very good!

After that, we had a short chapel service. Emily and the other girls didn't have a lot of patience to sit there. They said they wanted to play but I could tell Emily was running out of steam. I was also running out of steam so after chapel, it was time to pack up and get out of there. Emily slept about the whole way home and then took a four hour nap with me after we got home.

It was pretty cold on Saturday but there was a lot of fun had. I know that Emily had a great time and is looking forward to when she can go camping again!

A Sister to Every Girl Scout

Early in the the school year, Emily came home all excited. The local Girl Scout troop had come to her school and she really wanted to join. We all went to the informational meeting that happened and signed her up.

I was a Girl Scout briefly - I don't remember why I stopped and became a Camp Fire Girl instead. But there is a lot of similarities I'm seeing between Camp Fire and Girl Scouts. Lots of crafts, fun with friends, earning patches and camping.

Emily was very excited to start attending as well as to get her own vest and patches. She is a Daisy right now and part of what they are learning in the whole Girl Scout code. They get a petal for each one they learn.

One of the last ones is 'Be a sister to every Girl Scout'. Emily loves her fellow Girl Scouts and I think it's a really great idea. It's a community of girls, their siblings and their parents. Community and friendship is something that can last a lifetime!

I don't know how long Emily will want to be a Girl Scout, but she's learning a lot of good skills, making friends and getting great opportunities. This Saturday, she'll be marching with her troop in the Fletcher Christmas Parade. Next month, it will be her first camping trip, which she is very excited for.

One of the best things about our troops (and others, I have no idea) is that the leader ask for the girls' feedback on what they want to do. It's all about them growing and learning.

I'd highly recommend Girl Scouts to any girl. They form bonds and have fun while learning!

First Time Camping

The weekend before Memorial Day weekend my in-laws came to town. They generally don't stay with us because my MIL is allergic to our cats. Last first they just got a hotel room but this time they decided to rent a cabin at a nearby rv park.

Both Todd and I camped quite a bit when we were younger and we have talked about getting tents and going camping. He thought Emily was too young though and that she'd pitch herself in the fire. So when my in-laws came down, Emily got to experience her first camping trip.

The weather was oddly cold for the end of May, but she had a good time anyway. She stayed over a couple of nights, which was nice since Todd and I got to have a date night. We went to see Godzilla. And of course, gave Emily time to spend with her grandparents.

One of the highlights for Emily was making s'mores. She also had a good time putting twigs in the fire - and she didn't pitch herself in. There was also a small playground she liked going to. The pool looked nice but it was much too cold to swim.

It was a nice introduction to camping for Emily. Hopefully we'll be able to get a tent (and maybe a pop-up in the future because I'm not a fan of tent camping) and be able to have our own camping adventures like Todd and I had as kids.

Camp Fire Girls

Emily wearing my Camp Fire vest

A few days ago a high school friend posted that her mom had passed away. I was a little startled and sad to see that I knew her mom. She had been my leader when I was in Camp Fire Girls and it brought back a lot of memories.

I joined Camp Fire Girls in elementary school. I had briefly been a Girl Scout but my parents switched me to Camp Fire for some reason. I really loved everything about Camp Fire. I learned all kinds of crafty things, made friends and got to go on camping trips.

Every summer, I'd go to day camp for a week and have an overnight stay at the end of the week. We'd cook out over fires and make crafts. I remember one year I made a really ugly clown doll that I named Fred. I still have him - he's in Emily's room in her sea of stuffed animals.

Like Girl Scouts sell cookies, we sold chocolate bars. I'm not a great salesperson even back then so I was never a top seller. But one year I really wanted to go to the special weekend camp out for the top sellers. My mom drove me all around town to sell in different neighborhoods. I still remember one of the streets was Elm Street. I got to my goal and got to go on the special camping trip - it was a lot of fun.

I loved Camp Fire so much that I stuck with it until my freshman year of high school. The only reason I stopped was because I wanted to do the school plays which had rehearsals that conflicted with the Camp Fire meetings.

I have a lot of fond memories and I'm a little sad that North Carolina has no Camp Fire councils so Emily will never be a Camp Fire girl herself.