Grandma Day Camp 2014 Bama Bound

Right at the end of Day Camp, My daughter and family went to Alabama to visit my son and family.  They took a few day camp things with them.  They started with the flag ceremony.  

Then went on a big hike. 

 

Michael seems to be among the missing in pics…

By a rock—Whale Rock… 

And somehow they tired Addie completely out!

There were paracord bracelets made, but no pics…

 

Grandma Day Camp Day 3 -- Mountain Man

We didn’t have enough kids around, so we invited more.  Another brother came and brought his 4 kids for this.  Of course we started with the flag ceremony and just 5 songs. Here we are singing 'Alice the Camel'

 Then a quick knife safety for my brother’s kids and away to the woods we go!

Here are the activities:

                          ·         Stump pull -- you stand on small stumps and pull your partner off his using a rope... or for team, you stand on a big stump and pull the other team off... these big stumps came clear from Texas. 

 

 

·         Leather work

 

    ·         Fire building  -- the kids used flint and steel to light the cotton ball, then added the tender, kindling and on to the big wood. 

                            ·         Camp fire lunch

·         Knife throwing  -- Yes, you read that right!  They had rules for all these activities...

 

·         Ax throwing -- Everyone still has all body parts!

                          ·         BB gun shooting -- no one lost an eye!

·         Colter Run

The Colter Run is: the kids were divided into teams, with three on each team- one to shoot the BB gun, one to throw the ax and one to throw the knife.  These were a distance apart, so there was also running involved.  You got points for speed, accuracy and had to do it safely.  They loved this, then divided themselves into other teams, and ran it again.  We need a photographer-- Kate left and no one took pics...

Sometime thru it all, Bigfoot was sighted in the woods.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was great, but most of the kids took off to kill him with their walking sticks! 

One ran back to the adults, saying, ‘I almost peed my pants’.

 

 

 

The untold story is that my oldest grand kid has a gorilla suit and she turned around and saw him, and knew he wasn’t down in the woods,  so she was getting out of there. 

 

 

 

This was tons of fun.  Time to go home, now!

 

 

Grandma Day Camp 2014 Day Two—the most fun day ever!

 

We were up at Kim’s house and drove up in time to milk goats.  Jocie the kid milked Joc the Goat.  Yes, the goat is named after her. 

 

 

 

  

  Then on to the flag ceremony- they had to put up a temporary flag pole for camp. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Then the singing.  On down to the woods to get some walking sticks. 

 My brother was in charge of finding these, and came across a whole bunch that he cut.  Back up to the house to sit in the yard and whittle.  Everyone got matched up with the right size stick to whittle.  And go over the rules-- the blood circle. 

 

 The kids LOVED being turned loose with the knives and whittling.  They were very safe with their blood circle—you can’t get within their arm reach when they have a knife.  Even with a 1 year old toddling thru, they were very safe.  They wanted to whittle the whole morning, so we got way behind.

 

We had lunch with the lunch committee cooking hamburgers, pork and beans, and green beans on the buddy burners.  They produce quite the fire! 

The hamburgers were declared ‘better than daddy’s on the grill’. I can’t believe that I let my children cook on these with not much supervision when they were younger.  There was a lot of flame, and putting them out wasn’t easy.  We were going to cook pie crust sprinkled with cinnamon sugar on the buddy burners for snack, but ran out of time.  We cooked it in the oven.

 

 

 

We then went down to collect water samples to filter. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pond, stream and spring.  We looked in microscopes to see which was cleanest and then made water filters out of 2 liter bottles. 

After filtering the water with the filters that we made out of a 2 litre bottle, rocks, sand activated charcoal and a coffee filter, then using chlorine bleach to purify the water, some of the kids drank it.  They are all alive and well. 

We painted our picture frames, and ran out of time for the Dream Catchers, God’s Eyes and pony beads. We were also going to make some kind of bee house.

 

I don’t even know if we took down the flag.  We're supposed to be looking tough...

 

Bonus pic!!  Here is #lydibug wearing her shirt...  representing on the west coast!

Grandma Day Camp 2014 Day 1

Once again in Feb, we started planning Day Camp—and by planning, I mean making a list of what would be fun to do this year.  We start in Feb, because we work the polls, and Feb is a low turnout election, so we have all day to think and list in between voters.  We start by listing the popular things from last year, trying to think up a sewing project, and thinking of a theme.  We couldn’t come up with a theme, but wanted to do a preparedness type of camp.  My g-kids ages range from 13 to 1 and my sisters from 11 to 1.  I have 9 and she has 5.  Last year all mine came, but this year only those that lived near were able to come.  So we had a total of 9 kids from 13 to 1.

Kim came up with the theme—“Into the Woods”, because we were going to play in her woods.  She has acreage with a creek running thru and all kinds of fun.  Goats and chickens, also.  

 

My brother was going to come up for July 4^th—he usually does, and brings his snake, Xena, so he was put in charge of one day.  He had participated in ‘Mountain Man’ with his Boy Scouts. 

 

 

 

 

So on Monday, we started at my house with the flag ceremony

 

and camp songs—and it takes a long time for each kid to choose a song.  Even the non-readers have to flip the pages and look over each selection.  And the more verses, the better.  Even those too cool for school can't help singing!

 

 

 

Then, on to decorating the shirts.  Kim’s daughter- in- law helped designed the logo and her daughter cut it out on the silhouette.  On the back, we painted tree trunks and made leaves out of hand prints and finger prints.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 While they dried, we started our rip-cord bracelets.  The kids loved making them. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then lunch by the lunch committee, english muffin pizzas and veggie sticks.  Each day, there is a flag ceremony committee and lunch committee.  They rotate around, so everyone gets a chance for all.

 

 

After lunch, we made the buddy burners and hobo stoves. 

 

The burners are made up of rolling up strips of cardboard, putting them tight in tuna cans and pouring melted paraffin wax over the cardboard.  Do this outside, so the over pour of wax isn’t in the house.  Then Tom, my brother, cut the big cans with an opening in the bottom a little larger than the tuna can, and we put some vents at the top with a triangle punch can opener.  You need to save the tuna can lids—you use them to put out the fire.  The wax needs to go over night to harden up.

  

 

 Then, onto knife safety and whittling.  We used the Cub Scout books for this, and practiced on Ivory soap.  I think the soap is much more unsafe than using twigs and would not recommend it.  SAFETY HINT: The five year old thought he could really man a knife by himself and kept trying to sneak off to play with the knife on his own.

 

 

 

 

For the afternoon snack we brought back a crowd pleaser…POOP ON ICE!!  The lunch committee cooked the No-Bakes and dished up the ice cream.  YUMMY!

Somehow, we made can stilts and dream catchers.  Really the dream catchers aren’t finished, but we ran out of time.   Then quick singing and flag ceremony and they all go home!

Addie's Baptism Dress! and Matching AG Doll Dress!

I haven’t fallen of the face of the earth… I came to a halt in blogging, waiting for pics from Addie’s baptism dress.  She got baptized over a year ago… She wanted something with see thru sleeves and a full skirt.  The fabric went on sale and we took her to choose her own fabric.  She chose the see thru and the plain white then started acting like a fool and chose a pretty melon for the sash and none for a peek-a-boo ruffle.  When she got home and realized that she really wanted red sash and a red peek-a-boo ruffle.  Back to the store for the red…  I made up the pattern from different pics, her ideas and different patterns.        

 

She wanted a lace up back, and I have finally gotten how to do them easily.  In the center back, cut a wedge away—wider than where the zipper goes.  Make loops out of satin cording, I ended out putting a loop in every inch.  Then you need a triangle shaped liner that I just sew snaps on the top to hold it in. 

While doing this, I had to make up a collar.  She HATES the collar, but the dress screamed out for one.  The collar gets many compliments.  She doesn’t care.  I also love the sleeves.  She got baptized in Sept and they were just perfect.  All the little girls love the ruffled petticoat.  And it helps the dress have a good twirl. 

 

I had to add this pic—Addie and her cousin, Emmy played a song for her baptism.. Addie wore her mom’s baptism dress, which by the way had see thru fabric. 

Next comes the insanity of the American Girl doll dress!  With the lace up back and collar.  That tiny collar is the most time consuming…  At least the doll seems to like the collar.  The doll has a lace up back, I promise, but I have no pic of it…

 

FYI—the lace up back looks fabulous, but is a real pain to always have to lace up to put the dress on.  Think about if you had to lace up your shoes every time you put them on… something to remember.