Fall is for Camping

 In the fall we generally have two campouts, one for AHG and one for Trail Life.  This year we got the two rainy weekends in October!

For AHG, with thunderstorms moving in for Saturday night, we packed up on Saturday afternoon, so we wouldn’t be stuck hiding at the bath house for it to pass.

Ellie helping set up a friend’s tent

The older two wrapped up their outdoor cooking badges:

Gabby with our one pot spaghetti dinner

Katie with dessert: peach dump cake

Little gals praying on Friday night

My crew

The fellows, however were at a multitroop event that Justin coordinated without the lightening, just a never ending drizzle, so they stuck it out.

The theme for the boys campout was Highland Games.  They had stone putt, hammer throw (which I believe was cast iron skillets), caber toss, and catapults!  I hope someone sends out pictures at some point, since Justin didn’t get to take any.

Here are some of the prizes he put together:

The Barbie for the ‘prettiest’ catapult, Elijah Ghost Pepper sauce very for the highest shot (since Elijah was taken up), and leather bookmarks for the Robbie Burns Award (best presentation at the campfire, which ended up rained out).  The ball was used in the catapult.

I did get a picture of them loaded down with all their gear plus all the things to run the event.  They were packed full!

The girls had hoped to attend, but with numbers limited, they gave up their spots a went ‘glamping’ instead.

The last things are almost dry now.

Camporee

Last weekend we took the older three munchkins camping.  The older girls had a camporee for their AHG troop with a bunch of other troops in the area, so we went off to join the chaos fun!  Justin and I used to camp before we had the kids, but aside from his attempt to take Kate and Gabby on a night that ended up being too cold last year, we've never gone with the kids.  This required a bit more gear--the tent I grew up with wouldn't hold all of us, so we picked up a bigger tent and some camp chairs (we just had two little stools, which wouldn't work for 5 people)!

The weather was supposed to be truly atrocious.  We watched as the forecast changed from 60% chance of range to 70%, and it actually got up to 100%!  It did sprinkle on us a little that first evening as we set up, then it rained quite a bit after lights out, but the next day broke without any rain.  By mid-morning the sun was bright.  We did break camp after dinner that night because Gabby seemed to be having some fairly severe allergy issues.  We waited until after their evening activities were winding down to take off though.

 Fishing

Archery

Buddies

The girls worked on badges, hung out with their friends, Nate made a friend and even took a nap under a tree.  Ellie made it through her first night(s) away from me, staying with my parents for the weekend.  I believe that she'd never been away from me for more than three or four hours before, so it was a big step.  She played, ate, and slept some.