Ty’s Weblog

Home again!  It was a rainy day today, so our activities got moved inside.  We learned about birds and how to use a compass, then the kids got to pain the animal tracks they made on Wednesday.  Then they started up “Shrek 2″ in one room for the kids to watch and had board games and had board games and ping pong in another.  Xander has developed an interest in Chess on this trip, so we played that.  We had lunch around noon.  Then back for more games and movie till the bus arrived.  It got there around 1pm and we were pulling out at 1:15pm.

We made it back to school around 2:40pm.  We’ve had a great time, but it is still nice to finally be home again.  Xander and I are both very tired.  We should sleep well again tonight!

It wasn’t so easy getting the kids out of bed this morning.  They are all very tired.  We are up though and heading off to breakfast now.

Lights out!  It’s been a great day!  We are looking forward to tomorrow’s activities and then the trip home!

The campfire was great!  We sang songs while we waited for the fire to get to the point we needed for making smores.  Xander had been looking forward to the smores all day and he wasn’t disappointed.  He loved them.  Soon after it was time to head back to the room.  Showers have started and bed will soon follow.

I am sore all over.  I can’t imagine how the kids still have this much energy.

Dinner was chicken nuggets.  Pretty good.  Surprise popsicles for desert!  We went down to the rec field after dinner.  Xander just wanted to play with me, so we did that while the other kids played soccer.  Right now we are getting ready for the campfire at 8pm.

The ropes course was mostly a success for Xander.  The spider web and the water wheel he really liked.  The last one, which I didn’t catch the name of, he didn’t want to do and he had a little bit of a meltdown.  The kids were all very tired before we had used all our ropes time, so we are taking a break until Dinner at 6pm.

We went the opposite direction on the Appalachian Trail this time.  We had a great guide who had lots of good forest info for us.  Next up, the ropes course.

The kids has an hour or so of play time before lunch.  After lunch we went canoeing!  Xander loved it!  I had him and one other kid in my boat.  I sat in the back and they took turns sitting in the front.  The most exciting part for the kids was seeing the turtle!  It had a red shell with black sports and was pretty big.  Next up we are heading out on another hike.  I wonder how far we’ll make it this time!

Water Ecology was a lot of fun.  They took us down to a creek near the campgrounds and the kids got to play around in the water and look for bugs under the rocks.  Xander wore his water shoes and had a great time walking around in the creek picking up rocks.  Time for some free play time now to let the kids unwind a bit.

We’re up and almost all dressed. It looks nice outside this morning. Bed time went very well last night. The kids didn’t take more than half an hour to settle down after lights out, which seems pretty good given the circumstances.

Light out!  A very long fun day.

The rain cleared out!  We were able to do our night hike after all.  We made it to the Appalachian Trail again and got to travel a fair distance along it before we turned around.  I’d guess we did an hour of total walking.  We had a great time!  The kids all loved walking with their flashlights and picking out the trail marks in the dark. We are back at the cabin now getting our showers and getting ready for a well deserved rest.

We tried some group games downstairs in the lodge, but it wasn’t really working out so well, so after that they kids had some less structured time playing together and they all seemed to enjoy that more. Around 6pm we had dinner which featured chicken sandwiches and chocolate cake. The evening activities are being moved inside because of the rain. We did a “newspaper fashion show” where each group of kids got to make a costume to show off. Our group decided to do a Pokemon theme. There were some pretty creative costumes. Ours wasn’t the best, but I’m the adult that they had to help them, so there was that limitation.

From 1pm to 2pm we did archery. Each kid got to do 3 shots. Xander hit the target twice, once with my help, once on his own. 2:10pm till 3:10pm we went on a hike and did some shelter building. We learned about the trail markers and went all the way to the Appalachian Trail. We met a couple of hikers who had hiked from Georgia. It started raining during the hike.

Next we went to learn about animal tracks from 3:20pm to 4:10pm. The kids made casts of some tracks that we will take home on Friday. The rain is coming down hard now, so we are going to play inside until dinner at 6pm.

Name tags made and lunch eaten (sandwiches, potato chips, peaches, carrots, salad, milk, cookie, lemonade). Getting ready to head out to do more activities and hoping the weather holds out.