My Archives: December 2003
Thursday, December 11, 2003
Okay I know it's been forever since I updated so I will real quickly try to get caught up to the present.
First, at the end of October B and Daddy went on a camp out trip with the Scouts. Fun was had by all who attended as you will see below =o)
B shooting the sling shot
B shooting bb gun
B making his tye-dyed shirt
By far his favorite activity--sliding down the overspill section of the lake!
Then we had Halloween--(duh) and we took the kids around our complex. There weren't a whole lot of people with lights on, but there were enough to keep us out for about and hour and half and we came home with more candy than we could ever eat. We sorted it and sent a ton of it to the boat. We STILL have a whole bunch left lol Here are a few pics of the kids in their costumes!
B was a ninja turtle...and no...he was feirce in green so we didn't get any great shots of HIM.
R was a princess on a flying unicorn--I'm almost positive that there is an official name for them but I can't think of it...hmmm...a pegasus is a flying horse but they don't have a horn, and of course a horned horse is a unicorn so what in the world is something that is both? Ehh...I have no idea but I don't have enough time to spend on that quandry--I have too much updating to do here lol
C was a princess. What ELSE? She was "C as Swan Lake" lol and she was just a doll.
We had a lot of fun with that. Then we went straight into November which turned out to be a flurry of a month. The first few weeks were ladened with Scout meetings and such...R & C both earned their Girl Scout pins by learning their Girl Scout Promise:
R getting her pin
C getting her pin
This was a BIG deal. R is pretty easy about things like this--she wasn't too nervous, but whew...C was VERY nervous and ended up locking up when her leader asked her to say it...thankfully her leader is very understanding and she let C do it quietly by herself later. =o) The girls are LOVING Girl Scouts. C is a "tag along" because she is not 5 yet...however...I go to training next month to become a Daisy Scout Leader =o) I will only be doing the Daisies (5-6 year olds) my first year and then later I will do the Brownies and then R will be in my troop. Until then I am keeping her in the troop she belongs to right now.
Let's see...then came our BIG WEEKEND. Some of you may have heard me talk about our BIG WEEKEND. Maybe you haven't--but you'll have to hear it now! Okay so our troop decides we're going to take the girls on a fall camp out. We are going to go camping from Friday evening through Sunday morning. I'm a wee bit nervous at the length of time for a "first" time camp out...but hey--I'm not in charge. The girls are beside themselves with excitement, and our boys are excited to because as it turns out they have a Cub Scout event the same weekend. They will be attending the Fishing Rodeo and then plan to camp out at a local camp ground Saturday Night. Cool. A few details--Girl Scouts don't really camp in tents, at least not here--so we will be camping in a cabin. Cool. Cool for me...because I'm not sure I would have gone otherwise. Cool for the girls because they'll get to go lol It is NOT mandatory that a parent attend. In plain speak that means Mom's and Dad's were welcome to drop their wee ones off with us and we'll take care of them until Sunday. Our Troop Leader is a doctor. She is also a vegetarian. Trust me this is all VERY important information. Okay, so the ribbing and harrassment from my dh and son started early on that week. The "camping is in tents not cabins", "you aren't going 'camping', you are going 'cabining'", "don't get burned by the HOT showers you'll be taken", "enjoy your refridgerated food"...oh there were some evil looks cast about, trust me.
Of course, my primary response and the one that usually shut the clap-trap tightly was pointing out the fact that while my dh is totally dedicated to taking our son to his events and I appreciate that totally, there seems to be a pretty big difference in what I am doing since I am taking not ONE but TWO--and mine are a 6 and 4 year old girls--not ONE TEN YEAR OLD BOY. He really was left defenseless from that--and eventually told the girls that he was just kidding and all because THEY started saying they weren't really going camping and by golly, we'll have NONE of that talk. In all fairness, dh didn't think the girls were taking him serious about it.
Okay so, me, the girls, and about 150 pounds of supplies make a trek up about 45 minutes from our house to the Girl Scout Camp. This is Friday night, and it was dark when we arrived. The cabin turned out to be fairly large--had a bathroom with three sinks, showers, and stalls. The kitchen was fairly large, had an ice machine, fridge, stove, full sink, and lots of counter space. The cabin had a huge wrap around porch and a view that would be worthy of poetry. It faced a lake. Gorgeous. So that night we had some pizza for dinner, told some stories, went over all of the safety rules (buddy system, no leaving the cabin without your whistle, no going near the water, etc), got everything set up and sleeping bags laid out and such. We "adopted" a young lady named April who was there by herself and set her up with us. We got all the girls settled down about 10:30...I'd like to report that everyone went to sleep and we all slept peacefully. Eh. Riiiight. What really happened was the girls giggled, and then they giggled some more...and eventually the giggling tapered off and what we were left with were the ongoing cough attacks of about 3 young ladies who's Mommies were not present and had not sent in any meddies for them. Did I mention that we were all in ONE room together? And that while it seemed to be a big room, once we all laid down it seemed incredibly small. You could hear breathing...snoring...coughing...sighs, constant rolling and shifting...and THEN the ICE MACHINE made the loudest crashing noise possible which ended up with nearly all of the adult present sitting straight up in bed wondering if a bomb had just exploded. We unplugged the ice machine for the night. The next morning saw me and three other ladies who were in charge of breakfast awake at 5:15. AM. I know some of you will have a hard time believing it but I tell you it's true. I really DID get up then...and I got dressed, drank some of my sweet tea that I had stashed and only shown to a few like-minded ladies and took a vivarin because I knew this was going to be a LONNNG day. We let the little ladies sleep until about 7 and then we got them all up. Children have alot of energy. Seriously. So then there are about 9 adults and about 27 little ladies--and we had a day FULL of activities. Most of them involved walking. We hiked, and then we went on another hike later, and we even went on a hike again to where we would have our bonfire, and then we hiked back to the bonfire that night and then hiked back to our cabin afterwards...we must have hiked 5 miles total over the day. And to be honest, I was amazed how great all of the girls did. They really were a great bunch of troopers! We also played games like jumprope, and red light green light...we had lunch...interesting. My daughter C, she is a Mac & Cheese LOVER. She LOVES the stuff and would make it her solitary food for life if I allowed. We were having Mac & Cheese for lunch this day--I'm outside singing the jumprope song...ehh...one of them we rememebered from when we were little when I hear something about vegetables. Cool. I like vegetables. I EAT them. I've got no problems with veggies being served with lunch. I catch a floating comment about the vegetables being IN the Mac & Cheese. DO WHAT?? I promptly turned over my rope to another young lady to go investigate--while a movie of the future ran through my head of the little girl who was only hours before kissing the boxes of macaroni & cheese in the kitchen having a heart attack when she looked at her plate filled with mac & cheese with veggies mixed into it. Did I mention the cool liberal open kitchen policy that was set? If a girl did not like something that was cooked she was free to make another choice--they provided peanut butter and jelly and lots of fruit and such for alternatives. (that is important) So...I make it to the kitchen were the Troop Leader (remember--she's a doctor AND a vegetarian) had just added three cans of mixed veggies to the pot of macaroni & cheese. Flash to my horrified face. Flash to her surprised face. Flash to me telling her that I appreciate the effort to make a healthy lunch--but it might have been a better idea to put the veggies on the side. Flash to her face that says "what you mean every 4-9 year old doesn't like veggies in their mac & cheese"...I think you get the picture. So for the next fifteen minutes you would have seen me picking out the veggies from a bowl of mac & cheese. Now, I know some Moms might have said "she'll eat what she's served and that is that"...I'm afraid I've never really been one of those kinds of Moms and didn't plan to start on a weekend that I wanted to be full of wonderful delightful memories with my daughters. Perhaps someday I will become more of a "my way or the highway" kinda Mom...nah...I doubt it. And yet, I digress. My oldest daughter actually looked at her plate of de-veggified mac & cheese and asked if she could make a pb&j sandwich lol I told her certainly and made myself one too. My C of course at the Mac & Cheese, because hey as long as it IS mac & cheese that is what counts.
The day was mostly uneventful, and we had the most wonderful time. I enjoyed my daughters SO much and we had such fun on all of our hikes and things. Then came dinner. Did I mention that our Troop Leader is a doctor and a vegetarian?? Oh well, if not she is and that is important. For dinner we would be having spaghetti noodles with baked beans over the top of them. I'll pause here for that to sink in. Seriously, think it over. No, there was no sauce involved. No bread. Just noodles and....baked beans. While anyone who knows ME will already know the implication of this statement, I might have lost anyone who doesn't know me....so--let me explain. I can not think of a single food item which brings about in me a more passionate and deep rooted LOATHING than beans. Seriously. Now, I'll admit it's probably psychological--I distinctly rememeber a soup bean and ketchup incident from when I was a child but at the mention of beans on spaghetti I was able to push past that memory and actually try to figure out what kind of person might come up with that kind of combination? Oh my. Now my youngest, she's an adventure eater. She's like her Daddy. That kid will try ANYTHING once and I *love* that about her. And the good news is she likes roughly 98% of anything that she tries so shoot, beans on noodles is NOT going to be hard to give to her. My 6 year old--now she...she is like me...she's a very selective eater lol she has a fairly simplified palate which she is perfectly happy choosing food items from and frankly, she's not really interested in experimentation with food. She wants traditional foods, and even if she likes a food and has eaten it before--if it doesn't LOOK like the same food she'll hesitate to try it. I knew there was NO way I was going to be able to pass this off on her. She would not even hear of it. She asked me what was for dinner and I told her pb&j. She looked at me rather quizzically--she's way to bright to fall for that--and I tell her what they are serving for dinner and then tell her that is why she will be having pb&j. She agrees. I actually thought once I saw the noodles and beans that *if* I liked beans it wouldn't have been TOO gross. I however melted some butter and added a bit of parmesan cheese and put it over noodles. Of course during our breaks we went into the bag that Daddy had sent along which he had supplied us with oreo cookies, nutter butters and beef jerky. LOL While after a while pb&j's started looking kinds sick to us, we didn't starve thanks to dh.
So that night we hiked to our bonfire, and yes it was a bonfire. It was awesome. We sang songs...lots of great songs, and then we played games, and made smores...and it was such a great night!!!! We hiked back to our cabin and then we wanted to get the girls who had not showered the night before into the baths. R was one of those. I had just gotten her in there, she was about the 8th girl to take a shower, and had started shampooing her hair when we lost hot water. What's a mom to do??? I have to FINISH the shower even though the water is cold. I can't leave the bubbles in her hair. This did NOT go over well with my daughter and thus we had alot of tears and such. I felt awful but I couldn't have done any different. Of course, it doesn't help that my daughters are both spoiled rotten by hour long bubble baths with pillows and candles and soft music at home...lol This might equal my beans and ketchup memory for my daughter. God love her...she may grow up to hate showers and pools lol
That night after the bonfire several of the families went home and we ended up with 5 adults and about 10 children. We also had a box fan and remembered to turn off the ice machine. PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!!! We all slept MUCH better that night. We got up about 6 am and started breakfast. After breakfast we made yarn dolls, and then we started cleaning up. We made piggies in a blanket for lunch and I actually tried a veggie hot dog. Not to bad. We went on a short hike. We cleaned and cleaned and eventually we all went home. Whew. It was a weekend to never forget and while I doubt my girls remember much of it now (besides the cold shower lol--but shoot she may not even remember that)--I know that it was meaningful to them, and priceless to me.
Okay I just found out that the pictures I want to post haven't been transferred from disk to the computer so I am going to do that and will be back to post the pics and continue my update.
Love to all!
Posted by Angelbaby @ 11:08 PM CST [Link]
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