Camp

Jr. Jr. and Lucky went to Young Men Camp for 3 1/2 days. This was Lucky's first time going because last year, he came down with a stomach bug right before they were supposed to leave. Poor kid. He was fine this time.

When Jet saw us getting them ready for camp, he was in favor of getting ready for camp himself and was disappointed when I told him just his brothers were going. That little guy likes to be involved. 

We came to a compromise. I told him we could do camp stuff at home while the boys were away at camp. We had their schedule for camp so we could do similar things, although we had some of our own things to do as well. Let me tell you about it.

The day the boys left was Monday, July 20, Global Hug Your Kids Day. They got a big hug from Jeremy before I took them over to meet with their group and head out.

Later, I got to hug the rest of the kids. 

While the boys were setting up camp at camp, I had the kids at home cleaning up the living room so there would be room to do camp activities. Jr. even made a makeshift tent for Jet for a little while.

Apparently there was a lot of free time at camp. My kids at home were definitely okay with that.

There was a scheduled time for Game Center so we at home played Rummikub. 

When Jeremy came home, he and Jet had their special drink together. Refreshing when it's been so hot.

We did Family Home Evening and had phases of the moon cookies because July 20 was Moon Day. We opened up mint Oreos because I didn't think we had any regular Oreos then the next day I realized that we did still have regular Oreos. Sigh. So we had green moons. 

 

Jeremy: There. I made half moons, waxing and waning. I also made Muppet eyes.

 

My phone told me earlier that day the moon was a waxing crescent.

Earlier in the day we had an egg that looked like a moon. 

 

Tuesday, July 21, one of the camp activities was Rock Wall. We weren't going to actually climb any rock walls or go repelling down any, but we did go out to the canyon and went to Bridal Veil Falls where there was water coming down a rock wall. We set up the selfie stick tripod so Jet could use the remote to take pictures of the waterfall and us.

That afternoon, we did a service project. We went to a park and picked up trash to make it a little nicer.

 

Later, Jet asked for chips, even though he'd had a bag already. I told him no and there was no reason to eat junk food then I realized, "Oh no. It's actually National Junk Food Day, " so I told him after he ate his chicken, he could have another bag of chips. He did.

We also had woo-woo which Nichole wanted for Junk Food Day. 

 

Wednesday, July 22, we kind of strayed away from the boys' camp schedule and did our own things. We went to the BYU Paleontology Museum. It counted for a Summer Reading activity and we'd been promising Jet we'd take him. He wore his pteranodon wings.

He had a blast and made a new friend. There was another little boy running around who had apparently been there a few times (this was Jet's first time there) and wanted to show Jet everything. It was fun. He had his own little tour guide. 

We were proud of Jet only touching things he was allowed to touch and being respectful. We can definitely take him back there.

That afternoon/evening, we had some more outside time.

Then we went inside to set up a "tent" in the living room for Jet and Jeremy made a balloon campfire (with glowsticks) like we did back in 2009. Wow. That was back when we only had two kids. So Jr. Jr. and Lucky still have not had that experience but Jet got to do it this time. We did not roast hot dogs over the fire. We cooked those in the kitchen but Jet and I did "roast" marshmallows before I stuck them in the microwave to make s'mores. Jet loved it all.

 

 

Thursday, July 23, was Gorgeous Grandma Day. I wished that happy holiday to my mom and sister.

I went out in nature by myself that morning then helped tie quilts for humanitarian aid until Jr. Jr. and Lucky got back from camp.

That afternoon since Jet didn't get to go "fishing" like some of the Young Men did at camp, Lucky, Nichole, and I helped him do that. Jeremy put together a fishing pole and printed out some fish for him. I added some snacks and trash (old sock, empty candy wrapper, crumpled up piece of paper) and the last item, a stuffed shark.

Here are some of the things that were said.

Jet: I better put it in my bucket.

Jet: Oooh, Candy.

Nichole: Looks like the fish are jumping. That's the best time to catch them.

Nichole: I think the shark ate the rest of the fish. That was probably the last one.

Lucky tossed a paper fish a few times to make it look like the fish were jumping. One accidentally fell outside the "lake" and we all got a big laugh out of that.

 

So Jr. Jr. and Lucky had a good time at camp (and got very wet because it rained a lot) and the rest of us had fun with camping activities at home.

I'd call it a successful camping week. 

 

Camping in the Sun and Rain

It looks like I never blogged about camping as a family last year.  Well, we did, and the time before that was when I was pregnant with Jr. Jr. so you see, it had been a while.
This year, we made sure to go camping again, especially since one of Jr.'s requirements for cub scouts is to go on an overnight campout... and because we wanted to.  It was fun.

We went to Jordanelle State Park- Jordanelle Reservoir.  The kids were all helpful throughout (except for the times they weren't). 

We had a beautiful campsite with lots of trees (read: lots of birds).  There were various other critters who visited us from time to time as well.

It was somewhat warm when we got there, then cooled off a bit during the evening. 
We had fun playing games in the tent (the kids loved Uno) and Jeremy told us half a Jackerina story, "Jackerina and the Chickadees of Terror."

It rained most of the night and next morning (good thing we put the rain fly up when we set up the tent- ask me about last year's adventure).  We were flexible however and changed some meals around since we wouldn't light a fire in the rain.  Even though we did have the rain fly up, some things in our tent still got wet.  Oh well.  All part of the adventure, right?

We went for a drive while the weather was as it was and found some marmots, a cute weasel, and many birds, including bobolinks.  We got a much better view of them this year than the one we saw from quite a distance last year.

The bobolinks were also being quite vocal.  They make some interesting sounds to go along with their interesting look.   

Click on the picture to see it larger.

When we got back to the campground, it had dried out a bit, so after lunch we went down to the reservoir because the kids wanted to learn how to skip rocks.  There was some skipping and some rock (and log/stick) throwing and it was fun.

 
We had another good evening.  The day before, the kids explored around our campsite and found some secret passages through the trees and a sandpit where they enjoyed much drawing with sticks.
Jr. was tired enough that by the time we finished that day, we didn't play any card games and he was asleep while Jeremy finished the Jackerina story.

The next morning we packed up and left the campground. 

We drove around the reservoir to another section of the state park.  Another of Jr.'s cub scout requirements is to go on a 1-mile hike or walk and note animal signs.  That was very easy for him since as soon as we got out of the van he heard a cicada buzzing, saw leaves that had been chewed by some bug, heard and saw several birds, and we all got bitten by mosquitoes.  It was still a nice hike/walk, but there were some areas that we couldn't go to because the river was so high.

 Then we headed home.

Now to talk about food.  Several people on facebook gave us good suggestions.  We did some experimenting and kept with some traditional camping food.  I already mentioned that we moved some meals around, so here's what we ended up with.
For dinner the first night, we had hot dogs and watermelon and grilled corn on the cob (yumm) and s'mores.

For breakfast the next morning, we ate donuts in the van.
For lunch we had quesadillas and grilled cheese sandwiches (thanks, Jr., for making the quesadillas) with carrots.

For dinner we tried out pizza (with and without foil on top) in pie tins.  I baked crust before we left so we just had to put toppings on.  Everyone got their own personal pizza.  We had salad and whatever watermelon and carrots people wanted to eat.  We also made wafflecone s'mores again.  We tried jiffy pop, but it didn't work very well for us.

For breakfast before we packed up and left we had breakfast sandwiches and hot chocolate.  We also tried pudding-filled biscuits like we did last year.  I don't think I want to try those again.  You wrap a biscuit on a stick and cook it over the campfire then fill it with pudding.  The inside of the biscuit doesn't get cooked very well, though.

Now to talk about celebrating holidays on our trip.  The day we got there was Magic Day.  We kept telling Lucky that everything we did from lighting the fire to setting up the tent was magic.
The next day was Kitchen Klutzes of America Day.  And lookee what I did.  Dropped the eggs (not intentionally).

Sigh.  Jeremy was going to cook them for breakfast the next morning, but nicely fried them up that night instead.  Sigh.  It actually made it faster the last morning when assembling and warming up breakfast sandwiches.

Speaking of the last day.  That was Pop Goes the Weasel Day.  Since we had seen that weasel the day before, Jeremy suggested we go look for it again since it was so cute.  So... Pop goes, "The weasel.  Let's go look for it."  Unfortunately we didn't see it again.  But we did see more bobolinks and marmots.

And that's about all I am going to say about our camping trip.