Person Family

ok, it has been a very busy week and half. last week was our normal every day stuff with soccer practice and gymnastics. On friday though I closed daycare early. My girl scout troop went on a camping trip. And of course Kaelyn had not even started packing her stuff so I spent friday morning doing laundry and packing and watching kids. at 3:30 we started loading up the van and at little past 4 we pulled out and headed toward Mt. Hood. We went to Camp Namanu which is just past Troudale close to Sandy I think. We were stuck in traffic and a 40 minute drive took us over an hour. We had 11 girls and 3 adults. When we first got there we had to load all our stuff into one vehicle and then we walked down to the camp while Angela drove our stuff down. We got lucky and our cabin was a new one that had a bathroom and shower in it. there were 2 rooms with bunk beds 1 room with nothing and the main room. We found couple extra bunk mats and set them up in the main room for the adults to sleep and the girls organized themselves into the bunks. We ate our dinner and then did a scavenger hunt and then camp fire. Some of the girls were pretty tired by this point and did not want anything to do with campfire. but they made it through ate their smores and we headed back to the cabin. the older girls came and sang to the girls as they were getting into their beds. hugged them good night and went off to another cabin to to sing to the other campers. lights out at 10 however it took about another hour for them to go to sleep. Saturday morning we had badge work to do until lunch time so we split up into 6 groups and went to different stations to learn about Leave No Trace and our 2 badges Science ecology and going outdoors.

The first station that Kaelyn's group was at was skits. they were learning about trees and what happens to the animals when they are cut down. Kaelyn's group did a skit about bat's and trees. and Kaelyn was the tree. and few others were bats.

Then the loggers come and cut down the tree and the bats had no home so died.


Trees were replanted and grew again and then bats and other animals had their home back.


The other stations were not as fun as this one. they learned about what you would need to take if you were in the rain forest or Mountain ranges. Another station was about bird's, one was on other animals and how you should not disturb them or their surroundings such as leaving your lunch garbage out or walking on area's that are not meant for walking because you could distrub small animal habitat's. I think that one of that stations was on decomposition. We then had a break and did another scavenger hunt to finish off the badge work. We went to lunch where we had baked potatoes, fruit and veggies. We then headed to our afternoon activities which were desert cookout. the older girls helped our girls build a fire and cook backed apples. we then got to do some boating in the little pond. We had an odd number of girls so 2 of the boats had 4 girls in them and then kaelyn's boat only had 3. however Kaelyn was much stronger then the other 2 girls who were paddleing both on the same side and Kaelyn was paddeling on the other side by herself and they still were doing circles. She was much stronger and it took them a while to figure out what to do. I think what they ended up doing is the 2 girls paddled all the time and then Kaelyn would paddle and take a break if the boat started turning. they Made it to the end of the pond and back.

After boating we went and did Lummi Sticks. We did not get as much time as we wanted with the Lummi sticks because the group of girls running that station had to go and do one of their activities. bummer the girls were having fun. So we left there and went to Arts and crafts were we made sit-upons, suncatchers, painted rocks, and some made rock neclaces. the girls at this point were very tired and hot and ready for a break. we headed to the cabin to drop off our stuff refill water bottles, and clean up a bit before we headed to dinner. Dinner was pizza fruit and veggies. After dinner we headed to campfire where each troop got to sing a song and eat smores. here is a clip of my girls. they Sang flying purple people eater.

After campfire we headed back to our cabin where we made out own Lummi sticks and then went to bed. the older girls came and sang and hugged everyone good night and then it was lights out. We got up Sunday morning and started packing. we then went to breakfast and then flag. Where my girls did the flag ceremony for the very first time and did a great job. I was really proud of them. Back to our cabin to finish packing and cleaning up our cabin. We left the the camp and hiked our way backup to the parking lot. loaded up the vehicles and headed for home. We returned home about 12:45, unloaded and waited for parents to come and pick up. it was a great first girl scout camping trip and the girls can not wait to go back next year.