Scout Spring Camping Trip 2018

It's been a LOOOOOOOONG time since I did a real "life" post. I keep telling myself I want to sit down and journal more, but I don't set aside the time. I'm determined to do this more often because although I'd prefer a handwritten journal, this is going to be much faster for me, and I love posting pictures and videos along with my reactions. I want the kids to be able to look back at these posts in a few years and revive these memories.

Last October was Hunter's first ever camping trip with Cub Scouts. Brianna and I stayed at home and let the boys have their boy time, but the truth is, I really love camping, and Bri loved the idea of it as well, so when the spring campout came around, I was determined for our whole family to go. I'm so glad we did! We had the best time! It was the first time I had been camping in probably 15 years, and obviously I had never been with the entire family, so it was a really awesome experience.

Here we go!

Within minutes of setting up, the kids were off in the woods, blazing trails and already creating games. The parents kind of looked at each other, not knowing what to do with our free time. It didn't take us long to figure out we just needed to pull up our chairs, grab a drink, and start getting to know one another with no worries of what our kids were doing.

Ahhh, this is the life! We should go camping more often!

The first evening was really just spent that same way - adults just hanging out, getting camp set up, and kids exploring throughout the acres of camp. Due to us being at a scout camp, we felt pretty confident that there wasn't much trouble they could get into. They were reminded to stay within earshot of the camp site, and I'm pleased to announce we had no issues of kids running off and getting lost (that I know of - but doing a head count wasn't up to me - just kidding!) There were probably 40 or 50 kids, and plenty of acres to occupy their different games and activities.

Once it got dark, we broke out the bonfire. All kids were required to have a flashlight or headlamp, so they could sit by the fire and relax, or continue playing in the woods. It didn't take me long to become comfortable with my 7 and 9-year old kiddos freely running through the dark woods with just a headlamp on. At some point you just have to turn the "what-if" part of your brain off.

It didn't take long for Bri and this young man, Lucas, to become friends, much to Stephen's chagrin. Haha!

Why is my child wearing sunglasses at night? The world will never know...

At 10:00, it was lights out, so we started getting ourselves ready for bed. We knew the next day would be a long one, and we wanted to get plenty of sleep.

Either someone's really excited, or the flash surprised her

After a good night's sleep, we woke up early to the Bears cooking a great breakfast! Pancakes, sausage, and fruit were our fuel for the day.

Bri with her 2 other "musketeers" - "T" and Lucas. You'll notice them in most of the pictures with her.

Getting ready for morning routine which includes the flag ceremony and laying out the plan for the day

After the flag ceremony, we were told for all the younger scouts under Webelo rank it was time to go bouldering. As you can imagine, this excited our kids GREATLY. They love rock climbing, rappelling and bouldering, so this was right up their alley!

After about an hour and a half of this (Brianna and Hunter climbed the walls more than any other kid - probably a dozen or more times), we headed back to camp. It was almost lunchtime, so we actually headed to the truck and left camp while everyone else was eating lunch. We headed back to Warner Robins for Hunter's soccer game! So as if he wasn't already worn out enough from playing and bouldering all morning, now he had a soccer game in the mid-day heat! But he rocked it, as usual, and the Broncos continue their undefeated season!

The camp we stayed at was Ottawa - right in between Cherokee and Natchez camps.

When we got back, the Tigers (that's Hunter's den) were working on some belt loop achievements. We went to find them and they were doing artwork with nature. These may be kind of hard to see, but these are some of their creations:

Bri's was also a stick figure portrait

After the boys were done with their artwork, we headed to a nearby field to play a game. It was up to the kiddos to create a game, and we would play kids vs. adults. They ended up creating some mixture of kickball and soccer, where the adults couldn't do ANYTHING but kick the ball, and kids could do absolutely anything they wanted! I'm pretty sure this game was rigged from the beginning! It was actually a ton of fun and I quickly regretted going for a mile-long run earlier that morning, as one of the kids singled me out and I had to run fast and furious multiple times to get away with my pride intact! At the end of the day it was a great game, and we had an awesome time playing with some great kids.

Soon after that, it was time for "saber wars" which meant the kids created their own light sabers out of pool noodles. It was time for battle! The kids went crazy with the pool noodles in a setting with no time limit and no rules. It was very interesting! After a while we stopped them and had them get ready for Crack the Crackers, or something like that. Basically each kid got saltine crackers taped to their shirt sleeves and sides of pants, and that's what you aim for on everyone else. Whoever is the last man standing with no cracked crackers is the winner!

Making the trek back to camp

After a full afternoon of running and games, we headed back to camp. I think about 3% of the campers took this opportunity to sit down in a chair and relax. The other 97% realized they had some free time, and took off to the woods again. It was so funny to hear some of the games these kids came up with. One night someone was Jesse James and the cops were coming to get him. One kid played an entire hockey game with a stick and a pinecone, while another boy was the commentator for the game. They played football and frisbee, and discovered every possible trail throughout the woods. They played Red Rover a lot, but I think cops and robbers was the main game I heard them play.

We did pull them all back together after a while for a couple of rounds of Tug of War - and the adults got in on it at the end!



Here's Bri's team winning:




 And here's Hunter's team winning:



It wasn't long until it was time for dinner - pulled pork, macaroni and cheese, and peach cobbler in a Dutch oven! I'm telling you, I could get used to this camping stuff.

After dinner, the kids played for so long they didn't even ask for smores until about 9:30. We were going to offer them around 8:00, but they were having such a great time, and no kid was talking about dessert, we figured we would let it ride!




Eventually it was time for bed. I know the kids didn't really want to go to bed, but at the same time they were worn out from the day's events. Tigers (Hunter's den) were responsible for breakfast, so that meant early rising for those kids!

Serving breakfast like champs!

Clean up duty means getting in a line and checking every square inch of our camp site after church. Leave no trace!

Time to go home - I was trying to get a picture of just how dirty he was, but it didn't come through here!



The kiddos together and the kids telling scary stories around the campfire (Bri is being her typical motherly self here)



But the adults had it the roughest of all....




Great success, and thank you to all of WR Pack 422! It's been a great year!

Asheville 2012

Mom, Jennifer, and I have been very blessed in the last few years. We have had the privilege to take a girls-only trip every year since 2008 except last year (Jennifer's son Evan and my son Hunter were just a little too young to be left alone with the dads!!).

2008 - The famous New York trip. Pictures here and here!

2009 - Greenville, SC. Pictures here! (This was the year that Jenn was 4 months pregnant and I was 7 months pregnant on our trip!)

2010 - Chapel Hill, NC. No pictures, but I did blog here! (This was the year that I was 5 months pregnant with a one-year old and Jenn was about 4 months pregnant with a 10-month old!)

This year we were able to revive the trip! Our men feel much more comfortable watching the kids this year than they did two years ago. So we took a journey to the beautiful town of Asheville, NC!

Our journey begins with an extremely fun drive up the mountain with two of my favorite ladies!! Of course we had to take the opportunity to stop at Zaxby's.

Beautiful skies on the way up the mountain!

Mom wastes no time checking the hotel for bed bugs! I definitely do not remember her doing this on our other trips, but I certainly am glad she did it. (None were found, by the way!)

Three reasons why we ALWAYS. ALWAYS. stay in a Country Inn & Suites. 1) Price. 2) Complimentary breakfast (like, FULL, delicious breakfast!). 3) Free cookies 24/7!!

It was midnight. Jenn and I walked downstairs to get a free cookie and I checked out the library too. Oh, didn't I mention that every hotel in this chain has a lending library? Winning. Jenn snapped this picture of me going back to our room. I feel like if someone followed me around all day they would get tons of pictures of me reading and eating.

Case in point: Jenn snapped this picture of me when we took a road trip to Virginia back in 2008.

Good morning, Asheville! We are prepared to spend money at all of your yard sales and thrift stores!!

I think we hit a dozen thrift stores and at least than many yard sales too, between the hours of 9ish and 9ish. We definitely lost track of time!!

In between, we did need to eat. Jennifer said it best - the food was more about energy at this point! We had lunch at a great restaurant downtown called boca. Everything on the menu had a Mexican twist to it. It was delicious!!

These extremely large doors were downtown.

Look how huge!!

Booty, booty, booty!!

On the way home, we were talking and I didn't realize my GPS had frozen. We passed our exit but we weren't very concerned. We said we would hit the next exit and turn around. Imagine our surprise when just a minute later we passed a sign - "Welcome to South Carolina"! Hahaha, we laughed VERY hard! And that's how we made it to Landrum, South Carolina!

After a quick stop in Bi-Lo we were back on the road and on our way home to North Carolina!

Stopped for a delicious lunch at McAlister's Deli, one of our favorite restaurants!!

I bought a chocolate chip cookie from McAlister's for Stephen and each kid. They are HUGE!

All in all, I am super happy with our trip. Like I said, these are two of my favorite ladies in the world to hang out with. I loved being able to just talk without worrying about time. I loved staying up late finding out where the best yard sales were going to be. Trying to find local restaurants to eat at. Getting excited over each other's purchases. We had so much fun and honestly, I would be willing to go somewhere with them every weekend if the circumstances were right!

For this trip, I would say definitely the price was right. Since I am so funny about our budget now, I was really keeping up with how much money I was spending on stuff. One thing that helped is that my totally generous dad (and mom) paid for lodging. These are the things I was able to purchase:

3 loaves of bread, 3 bags of hamburger/hot dog buns, 2 packs of bagels (all from a bread outlet store), encouragement cards for church (3 packages), a flower pot for a craft, a new broom, cilantro to grow, head bands (2), makeup bags (2; for a new craft I'm doing), 3 shirts for me, 1 shirt for Stephen, a car bingo game, markers for the kids, a set of 5 glass cooking bowls, part of Kaleb's birthday present, scrapbook paper, 5 books for the kids Christmas/birthday presents, fabric (3 sets for crafting), a new muffin tin, a new (bigger) measuring cup, a book, 2 rings for Brianna's jewelry box, an unopened foam craft kit (for Brianna's birthday next year probably), magnetic tape, an unused set of Beth Moore prayer cards (will use these at church), a huge floor puzzle that you can write on with dry erase, bandaids, and giftwrapping supplies like ribbon and cellophane for when I do baskets.

All of that for $48. You can't beat that!! I seriously wish I knew how much all of that would have cost if I purchased it new. *Note: I just looked up the Beth Moore prayer cards that I bought because I knew they would be pricey - they were $14.99 on the first website I looked at, and I paid $3.* And I only need something else small for Christmas for the kids and I'm done! I will need to get Hunter something else for his birthday but I'll be hitting up some more yard sales before September. :)

Love these ladies! And our husbands for taking such good care of the kids and/or house (as the case may be)! We are very lucky to have such great spouses who understand our need for a weekend away!