apres camp

Well, here I am. The fact that I'm posting does indeed mean that we all survived the campout.

Actually it was a lot of fun (aside from bedtime but we'll get there in a moment). We had a pod tent with three sections. The leaders got one pod and the girls split up into the other two. We wound up with six campers which was a good number.

Dinner was hotdogs/veggie dogs over the campfire. The girls loved it and proclaimed that hot dogs cooked outside over a campfire taste way better than any other cooking method. They even tried to roast the baby carrots which kept falling off the sticks so nobody got to taste one.

After dinner we sang campfire songs. That was a lot of fun. Sitting there with the sun going down listening to their sweet, energetic voices singing campsongs, laughing and giggling by the glow of sunset and campfire. It was truly one of those magical moments that made me feel very happy.

After songs we had s'mores. As I had mentioned Miss D is a vegetarian. So we had gelatin-free fluff which she spread on a graham, topped with chocolate and another graham, wrapped in foil and roasted. Her invention was even better than mine as she made the foil long enough to put the stick through both ends and suspend the s'more-a-like over the fire. It was sooooo goooooey that everyone else wanted to do that too and slowly fire-softened marshmallows went completely by the wayside.

We didn't get a chance to do any star gazing because even though there was a full moon there was a very dense cloud cover so we'll have to find another time to do that for our badge work.

Flashlight tag and other games ensued before it was finally time to brush teeth. We told the girls that they had to brush their teeth outside, no going up to the house. Please spit in the bushes near the pond. They were so excited about spitting in the pond that they completely mis-heard the directions. D remarked, "Now the fish will be minty fresh!" Not sure how happy the fish were about that.

Bedtime was a challenge to say the least. Coyotes howling in the distance and what we think was a racoon keeping up a splishity-splashity clatter on the other side of the pond. None of this was helped by the "don't point your flaslight at my tent", "stop talking to me", "well make me", "but I don't WANT the window open" tween chatter that went on for quite a while. It was rather exhausting for both leaders and it wasn't until we threatened to throw them completely out of the tent that everyone finally settled down and went to sleep. As near as we can figure out they fell asleep at 1 am and woke at 7, urgh.

Breakfast was a complete surprise. Our Fearless Leader's husband, Mr. Fearless decided to "treat" the girls for their first campout experience and went to Dunkin Donuts. Try telling a pack of adolescent girls that they have to forgo the gooey donuts and hot chocolate for campfire cake (well, and hot chocolate). I'm here to assure you that donuts will win, hands down, every time. I'll confess that I wasn't too pushy about that though because I hied myself up to the house for a hot cup of green tea to get my corpuscles moving.

After a sugar-laden breakfast the girls had enough energy to pack up, take down the tent and hike around the pond trail. Everyone had a really great time and we are already talking about our next campout in May.

In case anyone was wondering...yes I brought toilet paper; no the girls did not pee in the woods. I guess it sounds more exciting in theory than in practice.